From a book by Stephen Jones titled The Judgements of the Divine Law.
Chapter 5
The Eonian Judgment
In any discussion of the duration of the lake of fire, it inevitably boils down to the meaning of the Greek word aionios and the Hebrew word olam. The words literally mean “age” or “age-abiding,” but they are often translated “eternal” or “everlasting” in the modern English translations. And so, this normally becomes the central issue.
The judgments of God are aionios (and olam) in duration. This Greek term has been misunderstood for about 1,500 years, but the early Church in Asia, Greece, and Egypt understood it to mean “pertaining to an eon.” It is the adjective form of the Greek word eon, that is, an AGE. In spite of this, many English translations continue to translate the word to mean “eternal” or “everlasting,” because of their doctrinal bias.
Strong’s Concordance says this about the Greek word aion:
“aion: from the same as 104 [aei, ‘continued duration’]; prop. an age; by extens. perpetuity (also past); by impl. the world; spec. (Jewish) a Messianic period (present or future).”
In other words, according to Strong’s Concordance, aion properly means “an age,” but he says that by extension it means “perpetuity.” Thus, he says that it can mean either a limited period of time or an unlimited period of time. But to make it an unlimited period of time requires extending its basic, usual meaning, which is limited.
He also shows that in Jewish usage of the term, “The Age” referred to the Messianic Age—that is, the age in which the Messiah would rule the earth. This particular application, we will discuss shortly.
Dr. Bullinger, in his Appendix 129 to The Companion Bible, says:
“aion = an age, or age-time, the duration of which is indefinite, and may be limited or extended as the context of each occurrence may demand.
“The root meaning of aion is expressed by the Heb. olam . . . which denotes indefinite, unknown or concealed duration; just as we speak of ‘the patriarchal age’, or ‘the golden age’, etc. Hence, it has come to denote any given period of time, characterized by a special form of Divine administration or dispensation.
“In the plural we have the Heb. olamim and Gr. aiones used of ages, or of a succession of age-times, and of an abiding from age to age. From this comes the adjective aionios . . . used of an unrestricted duration, as distinct from a particular or limited age-time. These age-times must be distinct or they could not be added to, or multiplied, as in the expression aions of aions.
“These ages or age-times were all prepared and arranged by God (see Heb. 1:2; 11:3); and there is a constant distinction in the New Testament between ‘this age’ and the ‘coming age’ (see Matt. 12:32; Heb. 1:2; Eph. 1:21).”
Thus, Dr. Bullinger agrees with Strong that the basic meaning of aion is an age that lasts an indefinite period of time. In other words, some ages are longer than others, but an age has both a beginning and an end.
The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. IV, p. 643, says under “Time,”
“The OT and the NT are not acquainted with this conception of eternity as timelessness. God, according to Rev. 1:4, is the one ‘who is and who was and who is to come’; and if in Rom. 16:26 (the only time in the NT) he is called the ‘eternal [aionios] God,’ this does not mean that as a timeless God he would have nothing to do with time, but rather that he is also Lord of the greatest spans of time, which he uses in his revelation (vs. 25).”
On page 644 of the same article, it says:
“The OT has not developed a special term for ‘eternity’ which one could contrast with ‘temporality’.”
On page 645 it says,
“The word aion originally meant ‘vital force,’ ‘life;’ then ‘age,’ ‘lifetime.’ It is, however, also used generally of a (limited or unlimited) long space of time. In many cases it should then be translated by ‘eternity.’ To be sure, naturally, one cannot assume a philosophical concept of eternity here either.”
Later on the same page, the author continues,
“The use of the word aion is determined very much by the OT and the LXX [septuagint]. Aion means ‘long distant uninterrupted time’ in the past (Luke 1:70), as well as in the future (John 4:14). The adjective aionios, ‘eternal,’ especially, serves for the actual statements of eternity (2 Cor. 4:18; Heb. 9:12, 15), but nowhere is a clear distinction made between limited and unlimited duration of time …. The intensifying plural occurs frequently in the NT, especially in the doxologies (Rom. 1:25; 9:5; Heb. 13:8), but it adds no new meaning.”
This should be sufficient to show that it is by no means certain that the Hebrew word olam (Old Testament) and the Greek word aionios (New Testament) must be translated “eternal” or “everlasting.” This is plainly stated in many theological dictionaries and other articles. It is unfortunate that this fact is not transmitted to the average Christian believer—or even to the preachers and teachers, who seem totally convinced that these words can mean nothing other than unending time.
But if olam and aionios occasionally should be understood in terms of unending time, these occasions are the exception to the general rule. It may be that when aionios is used a few times in reference to God that it could be understood in terms of unending time, rather than to His sovereignty over those future ages. We will let the scholars debate this issue. Some say it can mean only a limited period of time—others insist that it can mean either limited or unlimited time.
It comes down to a matter of controversy and disagreement between scholars. So who is to be believed?
Let us, for the moment, concede to the opposition. Let us agree with them that aionios can mean either endlessness or a limited period of time. If that were the case, then every passage which uses this term will be interpreted according to the bias of the translator. All the passages that deal with aionios judgment can mean either endless judgment or age-abiding judgment, depending upon how we wish to understand it.
If this were the case, then it would be impossible to prove EITHER view by using the Biblical passages that talk about aionios judgment. We must then rely totally upon other Bible passages to prove either view. We challenge anyone believing eternal judgment to prove their case without using any verse talking about aionios judgment or olam judgment. The fact is, THEY HAVE NO CASE, because these verses form the entire basis of their doctrine. Their entire case rests upon the assumption that aionios and olam mean endlessness.
Many scholars do not believe that there is a single passage where aionios MUST always mean endlessness. However, we do recognize that there are passages where the word seems to imply endlessness. For this reason, we are willing to concede the point for the sake of argument. Conceding this point in no way diminishes the force of our argument, because the Bible teaches the Restoration of All Things from Genesis to Revelation without relying upon the word aionios.
We can prove that God will save all men by showing that the divine law mandates a Jubilee, which is a limit to all judgment. We do not need to rely upon the word aionios.
We can prove that God will save all men by the passages in the New Testament where Jesus came to save not only us, but “the whole world” (1 John 2:2). We do not need to rely upon the word aionios. We rely instead upon the phrase “the whole world.”
We can show it by Paul’s writings, who said that all things (ta panta, “the all”) were created by Christ and will be reconciled to him as well (Col. 1:16-20). In this, we rely upon the phrase, ta panta, which is defined by the context as meaning the created universe.
We can show it again in Paul’s writings, when he said that “as in Adam all die, even in Christ will all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). Even as ALL die in Adam, so will ALL be made alive in Christ. We do not need to use aionios to prove this.
We can go to the last book of the Bible, where John sees all of creation praising God in Rev. 5:13,
13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever [aionas ton aionon, “for the ages of the ages”].
This passages uses the phrase aionas ton aionon, but our argument does not rest upon that phrase, but upon the earlier phrase, “every created thing.” In these few passages there are many ways in which God’s great Restoration of creation is expressed and established. All we must do is show that aionios does not have to mean endless time. Once we have established that fact—as we have done—then it is self-evident that aionios judgment cannot be used to contradict our view.
The bottom line is this: all we must do is show that aionios does not ALWAYS have to be understood as endless time. If we can show that, then we have won the debate, because if it can mean either limited or unlimited time, then those who believe in eternal torment have lost their trump card. But even our opposition concedes that there are MANY passages where aionios cannot possibly mean endlessness. In fact, that is why they must fall back upon the position that aionios has a double meaning. They would dearly love to make it endless all the time, but even they know that this is impossible.
Thus, from a clear-headed perspective, one can only conclude that God intends to bring all creation back under His dominion and will lose nothing in the end. The blood of Jesus to save His creation is more powerful than the sin of Adam was in its fall. God will be the big Winner in the end—not the Big Loser who has lost 99 percent of creation to the wiles of the devil.
How Modern Translators Deal with Aionios
There are at least four modern translations, however, which attempt to correct this mistranslation:
1. Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible
2. Rotherham’s The Emphasized Bible
3. Wilson’s The Emphatic Diaglott
4. The Concordant Literal Translation
Young’s Literal Translation was done by Dr. Robert Young in 1898. He was also the author of the Young’s Analytical Concordance. Dr. Young says in his Concordance that aion means “age, age-lasting.” For example, Matthew 13:39, when Jesus explained the meaning of His parable about the wheat and the tares, He said, according to the King James Version,
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world [Greek: aion, “age”]; and the reapers are the angels.
The Greek word translated world is not aion, but kosmos. So quite obviously, this is not a good translation of the verse. Most modern translations have made this correction, including the marginal references in the King James. Dr. Young renders this verse,
39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is a full end of the age, and the reapers are messengers.
The Greek word aionios is the adjective form of aion, “pertaining to an age.” Young’s Concordance says that it means “age-lasting.” In his Bible translation, he consistently translates the Greek word aionios into English even more literally as “age-during” to show that it means the events occur “during” whatever age the author was discussing. This is very literal and precise. Even so, another Bible translator, Weymouth, on page 657 of The New Testament in Modern Speech, quibbles with Dr. Young, saying,
“Eternal: Greek: ‘aeonion,’ i.e., ‘of the ages.’ Etymologically this adjective, like others similarly formed, does not signify ‘during,’ but ‘belonging to’ the aeons or ages.”
I suppose we must allow scholars to dispute the fine points of each word, for that is their vocation. But regardless of who is correct, they both agree on the essential fact that aionios does not mean “eternal.” Dr. Young used this term “age-during” so that the reader would not be compelled to believe that it meant “eternal or “everlasting.” For example, in Matthew 25:45, 46, we read,
45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these, the least, ye did it not to me. 46 And those shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during.
Rotherham’s The Emphasized Bible, is much like Young’s Literal Translation. He renders verse 46,
46 And these shall go away into age-abiding correction, but the righteous into age-abiding life.
Benjamin Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott does not presume to render aionios “everlasting,” but prefers to just transliterate it directly from the Greek. This non-committal attitude allows men to interpret this word as they wish. He renders verse 46:
46 And these shall go forth to the aionian cutting-off; but the righteous to aionian Life.
The Cambridge Bible Commentary, by A. W. Argyle, has this to say about Matthew 25:46,
“46. eternal punishment, i.e., punishment characteristic of the Age to come, not meaning that it lasts for ever.
“eternal life, i.e., the life that belongs to the Age to come, the full abundant life which is fellowship with God.”
Argyle recognizes that the term aionios refers to “the Age to come” rather than eternity as such. In our next section we will have more to say about “The Age,” that is, the Messianic Age. This is the key to understanding how aion and aionios were defined when the Bible was written—and for many years afterward.
Wilson’s translation is prefaced by the statement,
“This Volume, principally designed for the instruction and advantage of others, is now reverently committed to the blessing of our Father in the heavens, with an earnest and sincere desire that many of those who peruse its pages may be led by the knowledge, faith and obedience inculcated therein to obtain an inheritance in the aionian kingdom of Jesus the Anointed One.”
Some will say that the Kingdom has “no end” (Luke 1:33); thus, they will say, aionian must be everlasting. The term “aionian kingdom” is used only once in the Bible—in 2 Peter 1:11, where the Apostle says (according to Wilson himself in The Emphatic Diaglott),
10 Therefore, brethren, more earnestly endeavor to make your calling and election sure; since by these things you will never fall; 11 for thus richly will be furnished to you the entrance into the aionian kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Peter, like most of the other New Testament writers, exhorted the believers to make their “calling and election sure,” that is, press on to being overcomers that will inherit the first resurrection. These will inherit “the aionian kingdom,” that is, they will receive their reward of immortality at the beginning of that thousand-year reign of Christ. Revelation 20:6 says that these will “reign with him a thousand years.” This does not mean that the kingdom lasts only a thousand years, nor even that their reign is limited to a thousand years. But that phase of the kingdom is limited to a specific age; hence it is aionian.
We will develop this concept a bit further in our next section on “The Messianic Age.” Anyway, Wilson’s term, aionian, is much like that found in The Concordant Literal New Testament, which renders verse 46,
46 And these shall be coming away into chastening eonian, yet the just into life eonian.
A second example useful for our purposes is found in Matthew 18:8, which Young’s Literal Translation renders:
8 And if thy hand or thy foot doth cause thee to stumble, cut them off and cast from thee; it is good for thee to enter into the life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast to the fire the age-during.
The Emphasized Bible says,
8 But if thy hand or thy foot be causing thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee; it is seemly for thee to enter into life maimed or lame, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the age-abiding fire.
Wilson’s The Emphatic Diaglott says,
8 If, then, thy hand or thy foot insnare thee, cut it off, and throw it away; it is better for thee to enter Life crippled or lame, than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the aionian fire.
The Concordant Literal New Testament says,
8 Now, if your hand or your foot is snaring you, strike it off and cast it from you. Is it ideal for you to be entering into life maimed or lame, or, having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the fire eonian?
We see from these examples—particularly from Matthew 25:46—that the Greek term aionios is used to describe both the judgment of fire upon the sinners and the life that is given to the believers.
In Matthew 19:29 Jesus spoke of the reward of the righteous, which is zoen aionion. This is usually translated “life eternal” or “life everlasting.” Dr. Young renders the verse,
29 and every one who left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or fields, for my name’s sake, an hundredfold shall receive and life age-during shall inherit.
The Messianic Age
What is the meaning of “life age-during?” Is it the same as immorality? Not exactly. Immortality is a word describing the quality of life that we have after death is abolished. Life that is “age-during,” describes the age in which we shall have that immortality. That age is specifically what the ancient rabbis called the “Messianic Age,” or “The Age.” Since David wrote that a day was as a thousand years (Psalm 90:4), the rabbis spoke about the seventh thousand-year period as a great Sabbath-rest for the earth. They identified it with the reign of the Messiah. Revelation 20:1-6 treats the reign of Christ in the same manner.
Irenaeus, one of the earliest of the Christian fathers (120-203 A.D.) believed that a wicked man called “Antichrist” would arise at the end of the present age. In that context, he wrote in his book, Against Heresies,
“and the number is six hundred and sixty-six, that is, six times a hundred, six times ten, and six units. [He gives this] as a summing up of the whole of that apostasy which has taken place during six thousand years. (Book V, xxviii, 2)
“For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. . . . (Book V, xxviii, 3)
“For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.” (Book V, xxviii, 3)
“. . . bringing in for the righteous the times of the kingdom, that is, the rest, the hallowed seventh day.” (Book V, xxx, 3)
According to Revelation 20, this thousand-year reign of Christ begins with “the first resurrection” and ends with the general resurrection of the rest of the dead. This means that those who inherit the first resurrection will receive immortality during “The Age.” But as we have seen in the previous chapter and in other books, ONLY believers, but NOT ALL believers will be raised in the first resurrection. Thus, only the overcomers (the barley company—see The Barley Overcomers) will receive “life age-during.” That is, only the overcomers will receive their reward of life (immortality) at the beginning of “The Age.” Only the overcomers will have life during that thousand-year Age.
The rest of the believers will receive immortality afterward, and hence, strictly speaking, they will not receive “life age-during.” This is because they will have to receive their reward at the same time as the unbelievers receive judgment, for both will be judged. The believers will be “saved, yet so as through fire,” receiving either few stripes or many stripes. The unbelievers will be cast into the lake of fire and will serve their sentence until the great Jubilee sets all creation free.
This concept of the eons, or ages, is obscured by translating zoen aionion as “life everlasting” and kolasin aionion as “everlasting punishment.” (Matthew 25:46). The fact is that neither is “everlasting.” Certainly, immortality itself is life that never ends. But “age-during life” points specifically to AN AGE when some believers will enjoy the blessings of immortal life. And “age-during judgment” points specifically to AN AGE of judgment for unbelievers.
Augustine’s Misunderstanding
Matthew 25:46 has been used since the time of Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, in the early fifth century to prove that aionian means an unending duration of time. Though Augustine spoke eloquently in Latin, he did not speak Greek. Thus, he was unfamiliar with the language of the New Testament, except insofar as it had been translated into Latin. Peter Brown tells us in his book, Augustine of Hippo, p. 36,
“Augustine’s failure to learn Greek was a momentous casualty of the late Roman educational system; he will become the only Latin philosopher in antiquity to be virtually ignorant of Greek.”
Worse yet, the more influential Augustine became, the less the Latin Christians felt the need to read the New Testament in Greek. Peter Brown says again on p. 272,
“Gradually the ‘learned fellowship’ would cease to feel the need for Greek books. For they had Augustine.”
Perhaps this is a good illustration of what Jesus said in Matthew 6:23,
23 . . . If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.
The Christians in the Latin-speaking Church took Augustine’s word for it that aionios meant everlasting. This was their “light,” but unfortunately, their light was darkness. And even today, most of the popular translations have continued to mistranslate aionios. So average Christians today who read the easy-reading Bibles do not realize that what they think is light (in regard to future rewards and judgments) is actually darkness.
In Book XXI, chapter xxiii, of Augustine’s City of God, he sets forth his argument that the judgment upon the unbelievers would be unending torture in fire. His argument is based upon the Latin translation of Matthew 25:46, which we have already quoted earlier. Augustine interprets this passage in this way:
“For Christ said in the very same place, including both in one and the same sentence: ‘So these will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’ If both are eternal, then surely both must be understood as ‘long,’ but having an end, or else as ‘everlasting’ without an end. For they are matched with each other. In one clause eternal punishment, in the other eternal life. (To say) “eternal life shall be without end, (but) eternal punishment will have an end’ is utterly absurd. Hence, since eternal life of the saints will be without end, eternal punishment also will surely have no end, for those whose lot it is.”
The primary problem is that Augustine did not understand the Hebrew concept of “The Age.” He presumed that aionios life was the same as immortality, instead of seeing that it referred specifically to life (immortality) during the Messianic Age. To inherit life during this Age means to be an inheritor of the first resurrection promised to the overcomers alone. The rest of humanity, and even the rest of the Christians, will not receive their immortality until the end of the Messianic Age at the Great White Throne. We showed this in Chapter Four, quoting Jesus’ words in John 5:28, 29, as well as His parable in Luke 12:42-49. Augustine did not understand this concept.
Secondly, Augustine did not properly understand the Greek word aionios, at least not in the way that the Greek-speaking Church in Asia understood the term. He was looking at it from the Roman mindset, using an old Latin translation of the Scripture. The Latin translation at Augustine’s disposal used two different words for aionios: seculum and aeternum. Alexander Thomson’s book, Whence Eternity? says on page 11,
“Seculum meant a generation, an age, the world, the times, the spirit of the times and a period of a hundred years. That which is secular pertains to the present world, especially to the world as not spiritual.
“Long ago in Rome, periodic games were held, which were called ‘secular’ games. Herodian, the historian, writing in Greek about the end of the second or the beginning of the third century, calls these ‘eonian’ games. In no sense were the games eternal. Eonian did not mean eternal any more than a seculum meant eternity.”
Aeternas, or Aeternitas, is where we get our English words “eternal” and “eternity.” However, originally these had a double meaning, as we find in a scholar’s footnote in Augustine’s City of God, XXII, i, which says,
“The words ‘eternal’ and ‘eternity’ from Latin aeternus, aeternitas, are related to aevum, which means BOTH ‘unending time’ and ‘a period of time;’ for the second meaning the commoner word is aetas.”
This footnote was inserted in order to inform readers who did not realize that Augustine was engaging in some deceptive rhetoric. Augustine failed to mention in his book that aeternus also meant a limited period of time.
Aeternus was the Latin near-equivalent of the Greek word aionios, not because it meant unending time, but because it also meant a limited duration of time. Aeternus did have a double meaning, but Augustine applied the wrong meaning to aionios according to his own personal bias. That is why we are given the footnote in the modern publication of Augustine’s City of God.
Yet in all fairness to Augustine, at least one Church historian tells us that Augustine “all but abandoned” this argument later in life. Dr. F.W. Farrar informs us of this in his book, Mercy and Judgment, p. 378,
“Since aion meant ‘age,’ aionios means, properly, ‘belonging to an age,’ or ‘age-long,’ and anyone who asserts that it must mean ‘endless’ defends a position which even Augustine practically abandoned twelve centuries ago. Even if aion always meant ‘eternity,’ which is not the case in classic or Hellenistic Greek—aionios could still mean only ‘belonging to eternity’ and not ‘lasting through it’.”
As for Augustine’s argument that aionios in Matthew 25:46 must mean the same amount of time for both the believers and the unbelievers, this is contradicted by Dr. Alford Plumer in An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, pp. 351-352,
“It is often pointed out that ‘eternal’ (aionios) in ‘eternal punishment’ must have the same meaning as in ‘eternal life.’ No doubt, but that does not give us the right to say that ‘eternal’ in both cases means ‘endless’.”
We have already shown that the Bible speaks of more than one age to come. Revelation 20 makes it clear that there are at least two future ages that run concurrently. The first is the Messianic Age that was commonly believed to be the seventh millennium from creation—the Creation Sabbath. After that age was the Judgment Age of unknown duration—at least no one in those days claimed to know.
It is my belief, as I said earlier, that the divine law implies a 49,000-year time of man’s history. If we are now about to enter into the first Sabbath millennium, then the Judgment Age would have to continue for another 42,000 years beyond it, or six more great Sabbaths.
Chapter 5 of Stephen Jones' book "The Judgements of the Divine Law" continued
The Hebrew concept of Olam
The Hebrew word olam is the Old Testament equivalent of the Greek word aionios. Olam literally means “to an obscurity,” but it is understood to mean an age, that is, an indefinite period of time, but not of infinite duration. Strong’s Concordance says that olam means “concealed, i.e., to the vanishing point.”
Dr. Bullinger, in his Appendix 151 of The Companion Bible, says of olam:
“This word is derived from alam (to hide), and means the hidden time or age, like aion. . . by which word, or its Adjective aionios, it is generally rendered in the Sept.”
Under the heading “Eternal,” Smith’s Bible Dictionary (Dr. William Smith) tells us what olam means:
“Eternal (Heb. OLAM, hidden, time long past, and of future to the end).”
Thus, Strong, Bullinger, and Smith all agree that the word means “hidden” or “obscure.” Hence, the time of olam is indefinite (obscure, hidden), rather than never-ending time, eternity, or everlasting. It is indefinite, because an age can be anywhere from a lifetime to thousands of years in length.
To the Age and Beyond
Rotherham’s The Emphasized Bible renders Psalm 45:6,
6 Thy throne, O God, is to times age-abiding and beyond [Heb. olam va’ad, “to the age and beyond”], a sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
The King James Version incorrectly translates it “for ever and ever,” which makes no sense at all. God’s throne will indeed be for ever, but does it require two “evers” to describe never-ending time? The Psalmist did NOT say, olam va’olam.
Psalm 45:6 shows that olam by itself was insufficient to express eternity. The Psalmist had to add the phrase va’ad, “and beyond,” to show that God’s throne extends beyond the olam of the Messianic Age. Young’s Concordance tells us that the Hebrew word ad means “duration, continuity,” and for this reason Dr. Young believed that this term really did describe eternity.
The Bible uses this same Hebrew phrase, olam va’ad, in the Exodus 15:18, which Young’s Literal Translation renders:
Exodus 15:18
18 Jehovah reigneth—to the age and for ever! (olam va’ad)
Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate in the latter part of the fourth century, rendered the phrase olam va’ad to Latin as: in aeternum et ultra, or “into eternity and beyond.” This would be very strange if one insists that aeternum meant endless time. Jerome lived at the same time as Augustine and was well qualified to do a Latin translation of the Bible. In fact, the Latin Vulgate was the standard Bible used in the Church for the next thousand years. It is obvious that Jerome did not think that aeternum had to mean endless time, in spite of what Augustine believed.
Psalm 10:16 (Young’s Literal Translation)
16 Jehovah is king to the age, and for ever (olam va’ad), the nations have perished out of His land!
Daniel 12:2, 3 (Note the contrast between olam and olam va’ad.)
2 And the multitude of those sleeping in the dust of the ground do awake, some to life age-during [olam], and some to reproaches—to abhorrence age-during [olam]. 3 And those teaching do shine as the brightness of the expanse, and those justifying the multitude as stars to the age and for ever [olam va’ad].
In these verses we see that Jehovah, or Yahweh, will reign not only to the age, but beyond the age as well. Hence, this could express the idea of eternity. Daniel speaks of the resurrection, where some will be raised to life during the age, and others to judgment during the age. Then he takes it further, telling us that “those teaching” and “justifying the multitude” will shine to the age and beyond. His specific terminology sheds light on the meaning of these terms.
Dr. Young’s translation is not without certain problems, however. There are times when olam va’ad ought not to be translated “to the age and for ever” but left as “to the age and beyond.” This is because there is more than one future age, and sometimes “the age” is a reference to the first age. “And beyond” (va’ad) can also be a reference to the following age, rather than “for ever.” For example, Psalm 9:5 says in Young’s Literal,
5 Thou hast rebuked nations, Thou hast destroyed the wicked, their name Thou hast blotted out to the age and for ever [olam va’ad].
In this case “for ever” is not a valid translation. The wicked will not be destroyed for ever. God will rebuke the nations and blot out their name during the Messianic Age (when Christ and His overcomers will rule) and also in the age beyond (during the time of the lake of fire). So this verse does not prove that the wicked will be destroyed for all time. There will still be a Jubilee that will restore all nations to Him, as Psalm 86:9 says,
9 All nations that Thou hast made come and bow themselves before Thee, O Lord, and give honour to Thy name.
Psalm 67:1- 3 says in Young’s Literal,
3 Praise Thee do peoples, O God, praise Thee do peoples, all of them. 4 Rejoice and sing do nations, for Thou judgest peoples uprightly, and peoples on earth comfortest. Selah. 5 Confess Thee do peoples, O God, confess Thee do peoples—all of them. 6 Earth hath given her increase, God doth bless us—our God, 7 God doth bless us, and all ends of the earth fear Him!
The psalmist realizes that all the nations will rejoice in the judgments of God, because His judgments are corrective and remedial, not destructive. The only thing that is destroyed is the fleshly corruption and the injustice of man’s governmental systems that have prevailed in the present age. Psalm 72:11 says,
11 And all kings do bow themselves to him, all nations do serve him.
Psalm 82:8 also says that God will “inherit all nations.” How can God inherit all nations if He has destroyed them? And so we can only conclude that God does not intend to destroy the people of all nations who are currently unbelievers. God intends to inherit them. Isaiah 2:2-4 tells us that during that Age the people who did not know God will come to learn of Him,
2 Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain [Kingdom] of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills [smaller kingdoms]; and all the nations will stream to it. 3 And many peoples will come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His paths. For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war.
The old forms of government will be abolished “for ever,” and Christ will be the Head of a true United Nations to render decisions that will resolve all disputes without resorting to war. The individual people themselves will rejoice as they come into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
The Jubilee Limits Liability for Debt
The bottom line is that the law of Jubilee mandates by law a limit on liability for all debt—and sin, in the Bible, is reckoned as a debt. The Lord’s prayer says in Matthew 6:12 says,
12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
In Luke 11:4 it is rendered this way:
4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.
Luke’s account specifically equates sins with debts. The same is true in a number of Jesus’ parables, such as the one found in Matthew 18 about the debtor who owed ten thousand talents. A “talent” of gold in those days weighed 131 pounds, or 2096 ounces of gold per “talent.” Ten thousand talents would equal 20,960,000 ounces of gold. At the price of $400 per ounce, this today would represent (literally) a debt of $8,384,000,000.
In the parable, the debtor was forgiven his huge, unpayable debt. But he, in turn, refused to forgive the small debt that his neighbor owed him. So his huge debt was put back upon him. The final verse of the parable is Matthew 18:35,
35 So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.
This does not mean that believers can lose their salvation and go to hell. It means that believers may lose the blessing of the first resurrection and will be “saved, yet so as through fire” at the general resurrection of the dead. Forgiveness is the primary requirement to be an overcomer, because forgiveness is the way in which we live and breathe the principles of the Jubilee.
In view of the law of Jubilee, where all debts are cancelled, it is not difficult to see that the time of aionios kolasis (eonian judgment) must of necessity be limited. To make it never-ending would be a violation of biblical law, regardless of our view of its actual nature. That is to say, whether we believe the fire is literal or symbolic of the divine law, it must be of limited duration.
Chapter 4 of Stephen Jones' book, "The Judgements of the Divine Law"
Chapter 4
The Lake of Fire
The lake of fire is described in Revelation 20 as the final judgment of God upon sinners when they are “judged according to their works.” The scene is also described in Daniel 7, where the prophet saw it as a “river of fire” in verse 10. Daniel saw the legal process as judgment flowed from the fiery throne to the people. John saw the process completed, as the river turned into a lake. Yet both seemed awestruck by the throne.
There are two primary questions that must be resolved in studying the lake or river of fire. First, what is the nature of this fire? Is it literal or symbolic? Secondly, what is the duration of this fiery judgment? Will it last for all time, or will this period of judgment come to an end?
Judgment According to Daniel’s Vision
In Daniel 7:9, 10 the prophet was shown a vision of the final judgment. This came in the context of his vision regarding the judgment upon the succession of beast empires that God had given to rule the world for a season. The Kingdom of God, represented by the throne of David in Jerusalem, had ended as a national entity in 586 B.C. when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem.
While a captive in Babylon, Daniel had a series of visions and revelations that foretold a lengthy captivity by a series of empires, one after the other. The Babylonian phase of that captivity, depicted in Daniel 7:4 as a winged lion, was only the first seventy years of a much longer captivity. After Babylon rose Medo-Persia, depicted as a bear. The next dominant beast empire, Greece (Macedonia) was depicted as a swift leopard. Rome came next, depicted as an indescribable beast with large iron teeth.
In Daniel 7:8 out of this iron-toothed beast then came “horns” (that is, powers) and a “little horn” boasting of great things. (Rev. 13:5 interprets this as “blasphemies.”) From history it is not difficult to see this as the Roman Catholic Church, which derived power from Rome but came after the fall of Imperial Rome. It is after this “little horn” ends its dominance that the judgment of God comes upon these beast empires. With that context in mind, let us read about the Ancient of Days and His fiery throne:
9 I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was like white snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool . . . .
The description of the One taking His seat upon the throne is similar to what John saw in Revelation 1:14,
14 And His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire.
Since God is spirit (John 4:24) and can manifest to us in whatever form He wishes, we must ask why He chose to manifest Himself in such a manner to Daniel and John. Why should He be called “the Ancient of Days” and portray Himself with white hair? Keep in mind that this is a court scene, where the dead are being raised to stand before God at the bar of justice. Part of the answer is to be found in the law in Leviticus 19:32,
32 You shall RISE UP before the grayheaded, and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God; I am the Lord.
The law is not merely a command to stand up before an elder in authority. It is also prophetic of what will happen when the Ancient of Days comes to be seated upon His throne. The dead will “rise up” and stand before Him. Therefore, He is pictured as having white hair. It is part of the prophecy of the resurrection of the dead. We continue now with the description of the throne in Daniel 7:9, 10,
9 . . . His throne was ablaze with flames, its wheels were a burning fire. 10 A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before Him; thousands upon thousands were attending Him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before Him; the court sat, and the books were opened.
The source of the fire is shown to be the throne itself. Thrones symbolize authority and law, or more specifically, the administration of the law by one in authority. To be seated upon a throne signified that the king was issuing decrees or judgments in an official capacity according to the laws of the nation. In America, where we have no king, we have a separate judicial system, and the judges sit “at the bench.” When the judge enters the court room, the people “all rise.” The “bench” indicates that the judge will now judge matters according to the law of the land.
Compare Daniel’s vision to that seen by John in Revelation 20:11, 12,
11 And I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.
It is plain that Daniel and John both saw the same final judgment of sinners before the great white throne. Because the dead are judged “according to their deeds,” it is plain that they are being judged by the law, which is the divine standard of right and wrong. The divine law measures the deeds of all men to see what is a sin and what is righteous. Paul says in Romans 3:20, “through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” And in Romans 7:7, “I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, You shall not covet.”
In other words, the divine law defines sin and is the standard by which all of men’s deeds are judged. As John says so simply in 1 John 3:4, “sin is lawlessness.”
The Fire is the Judgment of the Divine Law
In the case of the Great White Throne in Daniel and Revelation, God judges all men according to His own law. The “fire” that proceeds from the throne is the judgment of the divine law according to their works. A common view is that this “fire” is literal and that it will last forever on the grounds that the people will be immortal and fireproof, but will be able to experience pain. Others say that the fire is literal, but that it will simply “burn up” (annihilate) the sinners. In both of these views, God metes out punishment, but justice itself is not done.
Our view is taken from the divine law itself, for this is how God defines justice. Nowhere does one find in the divine law a provision for burning anyone alive for ANY sin. The only use of fire found in the law is where a dead body might be burned (cremated) for the purpose of preventing an honorable burial. Leviticus 21:9 says that the daughter of a priest who becomes a harlot was to be burned with fire. The same judgment was to be administered to a man who married a woman and her daughter (Lev. 20:14).
Such judgments have been interpreted in the Middle Ages to justify burning people alive. But the justice in the divine law would not have anyone burned alive. They were executed first, often by stoning, and then their bodies were burned. We see this in the example of Achan, whose greed caused 36 Israelites to be killed in the battle of Ai. Joshua 7:25 says,
25 And Joshua said, Why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day. And all Israel stoned them with stones; and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones.
This is what we call today “case history,” showing us how the law was actually implemented. The value of case law is that it shows us how we ought to interpret the law. This is the only case we are given in the Scriptures where the divine law was properly administered. Babylon, of course, had a fiery furnace, and this was used against Daniel’s three friends in Daniel 3:11. But Nebuchadnezzar did not follow biblical law, but rather the law of Babylon.
There are some who have argued that the burnt offerings in the law are types of “hell” as a payment for sin. However, no priest ever set fire to a burnt offering before actually killing the animal. Furthermore, Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of all of these burnt offerings and sacrifices of all kinds. Jesus was not burned at the stake, but crucified for our sins. Nor did Jesus have to enter a burning hell in Hades to pay for our sins.
One specific burnt offering in the law is found in Numbers 19. The law of the red heifer speaks of the manner in which men were to be cleansed from touching a dead body. This typically prophesies of the manner in which we are cleansed from mortality (our own dead body). A red heifer was to be killed outside the camp by the high priest (19:3). Its blood was to be sprinkled seven times before the sanctuary (19:4). Then the dead body of the heifer was to be burned totally, as in a burnt offering (19:5).
Jesus fulfilled the law of the red heifer and was, in fact, crucified “outside the camp” (Heb. 13:12) next to the place where its ashes were kept at the top of the Mount of Olives. He bled from seven places: two hands, two feet, head, back, and side. But the crucifixion itself fulfilled the burnt offering by fire. Jesus did not have to be burned at the stake to fulfill the law of the red heifer. The fire was not literal, but represented the divine law. And when we apply the death of Christ to our hearts, even as the ashes were sprinkled upon the unclean, the life of Christ also is imputed to us (Rom. 6:3-11).
To burn people alive as a judgment for sin was also practiced by the pagans in and around Canaan who worshipped Molech and Baal. These pagans believed that burning their children would atone for their own sins and satisfy God’s justice. Israel and Judah often adopted these same doctrines, and the prophets condemned them for it. God told the prophet about this practice in Jeremiah 19:5,
5 and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind.
Some no doubt will argue that the only thing wrong with such a judgment was the fact that they were executing innocent children in this manner. Certainly, it was a travesty of justice to sacrifice innocent children for the sins of another, for only the Son of God could lawfully sacrifice Himself for the sin of others. But even Jesus Himself did not have to be burned with fire to pay for the sin of mankind—because that was not the penalty for sin. If the divine law had demanded “hell-fire” to pay for any sin, then Jesus would have had to be burned in hell when He went to Hades.
Moreover, if the judgment for sin were unending torture in fire, then a mere three days in Hades would been insufficient to pay for the sin of the world, and we would yet be in our sins and without hope of salvation.
Judgment upon the Great Harlot of Revelation
The only other possible example of “case history” in the Scriptures is where the great prophetic harlot of Revelation 17 and 18 is burned with fire in the judgment. In Rev. 17:5 she is identified as a prophetic “Babylon,” and thus John applies prophecies of the old city of Babylon to this prophetic Babylon. In her judgment we see more than one aspect of biblical law. Revelation 18:6 says,
6 Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.
This sentence is according to the law found in Exodus 22:4, which says,
4 If what he stole is actually found alive in his possession, whether an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he shall pay double.
God gave His people (sheep) into the hands of Babylon for just seventy years (Jer. 25:11), and so Babylon was divinely authorized to take possession of Judah and Jerusalem during that time. The prophet says in Jeremiah 50:6, 7,
6 My people have become lost sheep. . . 7 All who came upon them have devoured them; and their adversaries have said, We are not guilty, inasmuch as they have sinned against the Lord who is the habitation of righteousness, even the Lord the hope of their fathers.
God did indeed sell Judah into the hands of Babylon, but more specifically, God sold Judah’s LABOR to Babylon for seventy years. Judah’s land was also sold to Babylon, but the law says that God owns all the land, and so the land cannot be sold for ever (Lev. 25:23; Jer. 27:5). The terms of the Divine Court limited their authority over Judah for seventy years, during which time they could treat the Judahites as they would any other sheep. If Babylon had agreed to release them after that time was completed, they could have avoided God’s judgment. However, we read in Jeremiah 50:33, 34,
33 Thus says the Lord of hosts, The sons of Israel are oppressed, and the sons of Judah as well; and all who took them captive have held them fast; they have refused to let them go. 34 Their Redeemer is strong, the Lord of hosts is His name; He will vigorously plead their case, so that He may bring rest to the earth, but turmoil to the inhabitants of Babylon.
Because Babylon refused to release God’s sheep at the end of their sentence, God enforced the lawful mandate, using the Medo-Persian armies.
So also is it with the prophetic Babylon of Revelation 17, 18. They, too, have refused to release God’s sheep after seventy years. “Mystery (secret) Babylon” became a secret empire in 1913-14 with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. This occurred precisely 2,520 years after the original city of Babylonian Empire had been established in 607 B.C. This prophetic time cycle is “seven times” of prophecy (7 x 360 years). Mystery Babylon has ruled supreme since the bill was passed in 1913 and when President Wilson signed the bill into law in 1914 without even reading it. We and the whole world have repeated the Babylonian captivity in our the past century, for once again God sold all nations into their hands.
But when their appointed time came to an end, beginning in 1983-84, they refused to release us once again. For this reason, God has begun to undermine this great economic and religious empire and will shortly bring it to an end.
The judgment that Babylon must restore double what it has stolen shows that the Babylonian system, both ancient and modern, is a system of legalized theft. While this might have been lawful during the time that God had sold His people into their hands for their sin, it suddenly became unlawful when our divinely-mandated captivity ended.
God’s plan allowed Babylon to retain control for a season beyond their allotted time in order that He might have legal cause against Babylon, for it was in His plan to strip Babylon of the wealth that it obtained from its captives. If the Babylonian world system had released the people, its wealthy money barons could have kept their wealth. But in their pride, they thought that they could continue reaping indefinitely the benefits of God’s judgment upon His people. They were wrong, of course. But it is not within our scope to pursue that topic further. We have written this much to establish that the divine law is the basis of Babylon’s judgment.
The other main judgment against Babylon is more relevant to our study of the use of fire in God’s law. It is found in Revelation 18:8,
8 For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.
This judgment shows that the harlot of Babylon is in some way the daughter of a biblical priest, for that is how the divine law reads in Leviticus 21:9. This identifies the great harlot of Babylon to be (at least in part) a false bride of Christ and a system of priesthood as well. Perhaps that is why verse 16 describes this harlot as “she who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls.” The Levitical priests were to be dressed this way, as we read in Exodus 28:4-6,
4 And these are the garments which they shall make . . . 5 And they shall take the gold and the blue and the purple and the scarlet material and the fine linen. 6 They shall also make the ephod of gold, of blue and purple and scarlet material and fine twisted linen, the work of the skillful workmen.
The precious stones, of course, were part of the ephod that the high priest wore as a breastplate. On this breastplate were twelve precious stones listed in Exodus 28:15-20, and these are said in verse 21 to represent the twelve tribes of Israel.
Yet there are no pearls in the garment of the high priest. Why would John mention pearls in his description of the great harlot? It is because pearls have a similar symbolic meaning as the precious stones. In Revelation 21:19-21 the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem are the precious stones, while the GATES of the city are twelve pearls. On these gates are written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (Rev. 21:12). Thus we see that the precious stones and the pearls both represent the twelve tribes of Israel.
In Isaiah 60:18 we read, “. . . you will call your walls salvation, and your gates praise.” On page 67 of The Struggle for the Birthright, we wrote about this:
“Isaiah 60:18, quoted earlier, tells us that the gates are ‘praise.’ This is a play on words, because Judah means ‘praise.’ Judah was to be the leading tribe of Israel. And so in this case Judah represents all the tribes, for in that day the King of Judah—Jesus Christ—will rule over all the tribes in one nation, as well as over the entire earth.”
Even though pearls were not used in the garments of the high priest, we do see pearls in the book of Revelation. Their use, then, on the garments of the great harlot are part of her identifying marks. Even as the precious stones on the ephod of the high priest identified him as a priest of the twelve tribes of Israel, so also do the pearls on the garment of the great harlot identify her as the daughter of a priest of Israel. All of this goes to show the judgment of the great harlot to be in accordance with divine law.
The final judgment factor relevant to us here is found in Revelation 18:21,
21 And a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, Thus will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer.
The question here is if the millstone represents Babylon itself being cast into the sea, or if this is a picture of the stoning (execution) of the great harlot prior to her being burned with fire. The text could be understood either way. But we do know that the great whore is found sitting upon many waters (Rev. 17:1). It would be no stretch to see that the millstone was being cast into the sea, because that is where she was sitting while being stoned in judgment. If so, then this great millstone would seem to sink her throne beneath the waves of the sea.
The Biblical Use of Fire as a Symbol of Judgment
Getting back to the judgment of the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7, we see that the fire comes from the throne, which is a universal symbol of law and authority to judge the people. Deuteronomy 33:2, 3 (KJV) says,
2 And he said, The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints; from His right hand went a fiery law [Heb. esh dath] for them, 3 Yea, He loved the people; all His saints are in Thy hand; and they sat down at Thy feet; every one shall receive of Thy words.
Note that it is not merely the law, but a “fiery law.” Esh is the Hebrew word for fire, and dath means decree, command, or law. Take special note also that this law is said to come from His right hand—and then it says that “all His saints are in His hand.” As we will show later, His saints are the ones called to administer the law, because they are the ones in whose hearts the divine law is written. That is why both the law and His saints are identified as being in the hand of God. But for now it is enough to see that the law itself is characterized as FIRE.
When God appeared on Mount Sinai to give the people the divine law, He was also visible only as FIRE. Deuteronomy 4:36 says,
36 Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire.
In other words, the law was spoken and went forth from the midst of the fire on the mount. This is the meaning of the fire going forth from the throne of God as a river of fire upon the people. David used this same terminology in Psalm 18:7, 8, referring to the day at Mount Sinai when God gave the law to the people:
7 Then the earth shook and quaked; and the foundations of the mountains were trembling and were shaken, because He was angry. 8 Smoke went up out of His nostrils, and fire from His mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it.
How does fire come from God’s mouth? Is it not by means of His Words? These passages were not meant to portray a literal fire in Moses’ day, nor in Daniel’s day, nor in John’s day. The prophet tells us in Jeremiah 23:29,
29 Is not My word like fire? declares the Lord, and like a hammer which shatters a rock?
One can, of course, find many biblical passages where the “fire” is to be taken literally. This is especially the case when the text deals with judgment and destruction of literal cities or nations on earth. But the literalness of the fire in these biblical passages do not carry over into the final judgment at the Great White Throne. There are two kinds of fire: earthly and divine. The earthly type of fire burns the flesh-body. The divine fire burns “the flesh” in our souls, as it purifies us by means of discipline.
The Hebrew word for fire is esh. It is spelled with two Hebrew letters, aleph and shin. The aleph literally means an ox and is a symbol of strength. The shin literally means teeth and indicates the idea of devouring or consuming. Thus, the Hebrew word for fire literally means “the strong devourer” or “the strong consumer.” Moses uses a play on words to describe God’s appearance in the mount in the form of fire, saying in Deuteronomy 4:24,
24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
The Israelites thought that God’s fire would burn and consume their literal flesh, and so they refused to obey Moses when he told them to draw near to God (Exodus 20:18-21). Forty years later, Moses reminded them of that day where they said in Deuteronomy 5:25,
25 Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we shall die.
They did not understand the difference between literal fire and the character of God. They did not see that a literal fire burns the bodily flesh, but the all-consuming fire of God only destroys “the flesh” that we ought to submit to Him for destruction anyway. Are they not like so many Christians today, who still do not know the difference? We think the fire of God is for the purpose of destroying US, when in fact, its purpose is to destroy our “flesh,” by way of divine discipline.
Isaiah 26:9 says,
9 At night my soul longs for Thee, indeed, my spirit within me seeks Thee diligently; for when the earth experiences Thy judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
The purpose of God’s judgment is to teach the world righteousness, not to burn them to ashes. The fire motif is to show us that even as earthly fire burns literal flesh to ashes, so also does the divine fire burn “the flesh” to ashes. We understand spiritual things by their earthly counterparts. But we should not confound the two.
This leads us to our next question: how long is the judgment of God? Will God judge sinners endlessly with no hope of a Jubilee that would ultimately bring forgiveness of their debt to sin? If the purpose of the law is really to burn “the flesh,” then it is designed to correct men and teach them righteousness, not to destroy them or torture them for eternity.
Judgment and Punishment
Man punishes; God judges. In our Roman law system, the primary concern is not justice, but deterrence, which they try to accomplish by mandating longer and harsher sentences for crime. Two centuries ago in England it had progressed so far that men were being hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. Punishment is man’s way of resolving the crime (sin) problem; justice is secondary. But in God’s law the priorities are reversed: justice is primary, and deterrence is secondary.
When men punish according to the traditions of men, sinners are either punished too much or too little. God does not over-discipline anyone. The judgment always fits the crime. If a man steals $1000, he must restore precisely double to his victim. Not a penny more without the consent of the sinner; not a penny less without the consent of the victim. Divine justice may not align with man’s standard of right and wrong, but I myself will always defend the Word of God wherever the two disagree.
Burning people alive in hell is not justice—it is punishment. True justice is never fully accomplished until all the victims of injustice have been recompensed and the sinner restored to grace. This cannot happen in man’s prison system, nor could it happen by torturing sinners forever, nor could it even happen by annihilating all sinners in fire. All of these alternative methods represent punishment, not divine justice.
Only the justice of the divine law found in the Bible is true justice. Its purpose is not only to repay all victims for their injuries, but is also designed to work toward the sinner’s forgiveness and restoration to the congregation (Church).
It is true, of course, that the law is weak in some ways. Paul says in Romans 8:3 that the law is “weak through the flesh.” That is, if a man committed murder, the law cannot restore the victim back to life, and so restoration is not possible because of fleshly weakness. If a married woman is raped, the sinner does not have the power to un-rape her. Because of human, fleshly weakness, then, the law is weak. This is why in such cases, the sinner was put to death. Whenever the crime was such that there was no possible way to restore the lawful order, the sinner was to be put to death.
Putting the sinner to death was only partial justice, for no man can give two lives for the one stolen. In fact, the law says that double restitution was mandated for sheep that were found ALIVE in the thief’s hand. If the sheep had been killed, the thief owed four sheep for a sheep and five oxen for an ox (Exodus 22:1). Since no man can give more than his own life, it is apparent that the death penalty was not the full penalty that could satisfy the law.
Neither does the death penalty do anything to compensate or restore the victims of injustice. The relatives of the murdered man still grieve. The raped woman remains emotionally scarred. The death penalty is not justice—it was the law’s way of deferring judgment to the Great White Throne, where justice could be completed, where there was no longer any fleshly limitation in the law’s power to restore the losses incurred by the victims.
At the Great White Throne, God Himself, who has the power to raise the dead and heal the broken-hearted, has the power to make all things right. When the fiery law is administered to the sinners, the murderer may owe his victim, say, fifty years of life, during which time he might be sentenced to serve his victim. All sin is reckoned as a debt, and therefore all sinners are the debtors of their victims. That is divine justice. I am not wise enough to know how God will judge every case, but I have confidence that He has the capability and the will to make all things right.
We should also say here that if a murderer places his faith in Jesus Christ, then His crucifixion (death) will satisfy the law at the Great White Throne Judgment.
Law and Forgiveness
The function of the law is not to forgive sin, but to do justice by enforcing various penalties, depending upon the infraction. Forgiveness is something that only victims can do. Neither the law nor the judge has the authority to forgive sin (crime). If a man steals $1,000, the law says he must repay his victim double, or $2,000. The judge cannot reduce the sentence without violating the rights of the victim, nor can he increase it without violating the rights of the law-breaker. But the victim may reduce or cancel the debt as he wishes, for he alone has the power of grace to forgive what is owed him.
At the same time, the law mandates forgiveness once the law-breaker has obtained grace. That is, once his debt has been paid, he is under grace, and no one has the right to hold his former sin against him. Leviticus 19:17, 18 says,
17 You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
In other words, no one has the right to exact more of the law-breaker than the law allows. When the debt is fully paid, forgiveness is mandatory. Loving your neighbor means that one cannot treat anyone as an ex-convict. He is a forgiven sinner under grace.
The Laws of Redemption
Another provision in the law by which such debts can be paid is found in the laws of redemption. In such cases a near kinsman may act as the debtor’s redeemer, paying the debt on his behalf (Leviticus 25:47-49). The redeemer, in essence, purchases the debt note of the debtor. The debt is transferred to the redeemer, and the redeemed debtor now must work for the redeemer until the debt is paid (Lev. 25:53).
Jesus came to earth as a near-kinsman (Heb. 2:11) in order to have the lawful right of redemption. He purchased our debt note, for Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:23 that “you were bought with a price.” Paul also says of redeemed people in Romans 6:22, “But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.” In other words, the debtor-sinner has been freed from the old taskmaster (sin) in order to serve his Redeemer. The Redeemer teaches him how to be law-abiding rather than lawless and how to be led by the Spirit for his sanctification.
Jesus did not redeem us to give us the right to continue serving sin. In other words, He did not purchase for us the right to be disobedient to His law. He purchased us in order that we might serve Him and learn righteousness, “resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.”
During that final age of judgment upon the sinners, the believers will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). These believers are the Body of Christ. They are the sons of God, who manifest Christ fully in His character and in His works. As such, they will receive a sacred responsibility of doing what He did. At the Great White Throne, the Judge of all the earth will sentence all unbelieving sinners by imposing upon them the debt incurred for every sin they ever committed. All sinners will be held fully accountable according to their deeds, as Revelation 20:12 and 13 clearly tell us.
However, the law also mandates that there must always be provision for redemption of the land or any portion of it. Leviticus 25:23, 24 says,
23 The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me. 24 Thus for every piece of your property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land.
All men are made of the dust of the ground, beginning with Adam (Gen. 2:7). God owns all the land, including us, by right of creation. And so, the law above applies to all mankind. There must always be a provision for redemption of the land. God’s only justification for this law is on the grounds that He owns all the land and therefore has the right to set the terms of men’s inheriting His land.
Since God will judge the whole earth according to His law, this provision is very important. It gives us the basic outline of what life will be like during that final age of judgment. Redeemers will purchase their debt note and thereby receive authority over the sinners. This sheds light on Jesus’ parable in Luke 19, where He spoke of the righteous receiving authority over ten cities, or five, or even just one city. Who will they rule? What will be the basis of their authority?
The answer is in the law, which prophesies that which shall be. The righteous will be given authority over debtors to the law—those who did not avail themselves of Jesus’ provision to pay their debt. The sinners will be placed as servants of the sons of God.
The sons of God will receive authority, but also the responsibility to teach them righteousness. As we saw earlier in Romans 6:22 in Paul’s application of the laws of redemption, the purpose of redemption was “sanctification and the outcome, eternal life.” Thus, each believer who inherits the earth will act as a redeemer (under Christ, of course) and be given authority over a certain number of judged sinners. These will serve out their sentences as “slaves of righteousness.”
The believers’ responsibility will be to teach the sinners the love of God and His ways. Isaiah 26:9, quoted earlier, says, “When the earth experiences Thy judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” How will they learn? The believers will teach them through discipline when necessary, but always in love. In many ways it will be like parents training children by combining love with discipline.
These debtors, the law says, must serve their redeemers until their debt is paid, or until the Jubilee. In past times when the Law of God was enforced in the land of Israel, the sinner was held accountable for what he did overtly. The sinner was then restored to grace insofar as the nation was concerned, but such judgment did not address the underlying heart problem that all men received from Adam. Thus, the judgment was limited in its scope, and so also the grace and forgiveness that the sinner received.
But in that final age of judgment, God will address these deeper issues. The judgment must address not only the sins of the individual sinners, but also the debt of their fathers all the way back to Adam. Romans 5:12 tells us that because of Adam’s sin, death (mortality) passed into all men—which means that all men are paying for Adam’s sin and not merely their own sins. We are born mortal because of something Adam did. This is the deeper issue that puts us all in need of a Redeemer.
Those who did not take advantage of Jesus’ redemptive work on the Cross must yet find redeemers at the Great White Throne, for there is no way they will be able to pay the debt that they owe. Theoretically, perhaps, some good people might be able to pay their debt, especially if they died young without doing much wrong to their neighbors. Will such people be able to pay their debt to the law within a few years? Yes—however, they will also still be liable for the original sin of Adam, even as we see today. This debt is unpayable, and so they will have to serve their redeemers until that final Jubilee mandates the cancellation of all debt. Hence, the Jubilee law mandates in Leviticus 25:54,
54 Even if he is not redeemed by these means, he shall still go out in the year of Jubilee, he and his sons with him.
The unbelievers are still the children of the first Adam, who received this liability for sin that resulted in mortality. Only believers have become the children of the Last Adam, Jesus Christ. And so, all unbelievers will have to remain under the authority of the sons of God until the year of Jubilee. Then all creation—Adam and his sons with him—will be set free into the glorious liberty of the sons of God (Rom. 8:21).
The Jubilee
The Jubilee occurred every 49 years (Lev. 25:8-17). However, on this highest level, I believe that the Jubilee will occur at the end of 49,000 years of human history. (We are currently at the end of just 6,000 years and awaiting our first millennial Sabbath-rest.)
The Creation Jubilee will set all men free, for all debt to the law will be cancelled. Until that time arrives, however, they will have to remain under authority until the Jubilee. During that time, the saints in authority will teach them righteousness.
The Jubilee law was designed to limit all debt to the law for sin. Men’s traditions are thus not as merciful as God’s law. Men would have sinners punished harshly, and many Church traditions would have sinners pay their debt perpetually in fiery torture with no possible end. God’s law, on the other hand, includes mercy and forgiveness. All debt incurred by sin ends at the Jubilee.
The law of Jubilee applies to more serious crimes where a debt is so large that it cannot be paid. The same spirit of the law applies to lesser offences, for we read in Deuteronomy 25:1-3,
1 If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, 2 then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his guilt. 3 He may beat him forty times but no more, lest he beat him with many more stripes than these, and your brother be degraded in your eyes.
Jesus referred to this law in Luke 12:42-49. There we are told that God’s faithful stewards will be made rulers over all His possessions (12:44). But the unjust servants who oppressed their fellow servants will be beaten according to their guilt. Those who sinned in ignorance will be beaten with few stripes; those who sinned with full knowledge of what they were doing will receive many stripes—that is, up to forty.
What is of interest to us here is that once the judgment has been administered, the sinner is to be set free—not burned in hell. In fact, Jesus concludes His parable by telling us that this judgment of the law is a FIRE. Verse 49 says,
49 I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled.
Let us not think that Jesus wished to bring people into the torture hell-fire as many understand it. His wish was to restore the earth by means of lawful judgments, but that time had not yet come.
Incidentally, in the passage in Luke 12 above, Jesus was not referring to unbelievers being judged in the lake of fire. He was referring to believers who will be “saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15). As we have shown in The Barley Overcomers as well as in The Laws of the Second Coming, there are two resurrections. The first is at the beginning of the thousand-year Sabbath millennium (Rev. 20:1-6) that is the time that the overcomers will receive immortality and eonian life (life in “The Age”). The general resurrection at the end of that thousand years will include all the dead who did not attain to that first resurrection. This second resurrection will include both believers and unbelievers, as Jesus taught us in John 5:28 and 29,
28 Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice, 29 and shall come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
Jesus was NOT describing the first resurrection, wherein we see a resurrection of only the few who will rule and reign with Christ during the thousand years (Rev. 20:6). He can only be referring to the second, general resurrection, which will empty Hades. In this resurrection, Jesus says, some will receive life (immortality), while others will receive judgment (the lake of fire). Paul affirms this in his testimony before Governor Felix in Acts 24:15.
Christian believers who are “saved yet so as through fire” will not be cast into the “lake of fire,” but they will be judged on some level according to the fiery law. Since it is the same law that will judge both the believers and the unbelievers, both are said to be a “fire.” But the believers will be judged by the “few stripes” or “many stripes,” and this is of short duration. God treats them as disobedient (lawless) children who need some discipline because they refused to be obedient to His law after Christ had redeemed them.
The unbelievers, however, will be judged for more serious crimes. Theirs is the “lake of fire,” which will only end at the Jubilee when all creation comes into the glorious liberty of the sons of God (Rom. 8:21).
The Discipline of God’s Children
The Bible clearly teaches that the purpose of the law’s judgments is first to obtain justice for the victims, and secondly to obtain forgiveness for the sinner. Too often this secondary purpose has been lost in men’s zeal for punishment. Psalm 130:3 and 4 says,
3 If Thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared [respected].
Those of us who have brought up children can understand David’s statement very well. Discipline is necessary in order to bring children to maturity and teach the difference between right and wrong. The law (rules of the household) is their schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. With each judgment, there must be forgiveness at the end of the time of discipline. Forgiveness after discipline is what causes a child to respect the parent. This is the healthy “fear” that David mentions.
Over-discipline will cause the child to develop an unhealthy kind of fear, and he will eventually lose respect for the parent.
God is bringing forth children in this world. That is why we are called “the sons of God.” That is also why God is said to be our Father. He is the perfect parent. He brings discipline to His children, because the undisciplined ones are illegitimate. Hebrews 12:6-11 says,
6 For those whom the Lord loves he disciplines; and He scourges every son whom He receives. 7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
The problem is that men so often have an unhealthy fear of their heavenly Father, because they have been taught that He over-disciplines His children. In fact, many Roman Catholics have been taught as a matter of course that Jesus Christ is unapproachable and would burn us alive if we ever tried to get too close to Him. For that reason, they are taught to pray to Mary, imploring her to intercede for them. Mary is less threatening, but “everyone knows that a good son will listen to his mother.”
It is sad that men have been frightened away from Jesus. During His ministry on earth, men were attracted to him—even children—because of His great love and tenderness toward them. But the traditions of men have reversed this, and many now do not really know Him at all. As a parent myself, I know how it would feel if my own children thought I were so frightening.
In fact, it is usually the Church denominations that want to frighten people into submitting to their Church leaders. This is an unhealthy fear, but the leaders justify their behavior by claiming to be a reflection of Jesus Christ. Thus, if Jesus Christ is such a fearful God, then men ought to fear the Church which supposedly represents Him. But how often does the Church really reflect the character of Jesus Christ?
I am not a speed reader either Def. I will offer a synopsis later on this subject matter. For now one can scan the chapters. They are rather interesting. Basically, the chapters say that if we are dealing with God's judgement of man we should go to God's law from the Old Testament as a precedent in determining how God will judge mankind at the Great White Throne judgement in the future.
One can not in truth say that God will judge mankind based on man's laws or traditions. What is instead needed is both a knowledge of the Old Testament law and biblical precedents for how it was applied. Your argument of eternal torment is descredited because torture was not part of the Old Testament Law. Instead for certain capital offenses we had death awaiting God's judgement at the end of the age. Since torture was not prescribed in dealing with offenses how can one say that eternal torment will be prescribed later? Even the lash as a means of corrective punishment was to be limited to 40 stripes.
Dr. Jones' articles are well written and based on actual biblical historical events in determining the prophetic future as taught in the book of Revelation and other biblical books. Other means of interpretation that don't take into consideration biblical history are merely guess work. Or as Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun and things in life are cyclical.
Have you read the books referenced by Dr. Fairchild?
Hellfire is a difficult subject to understand, but the idea that God could not or would not inflict it upon rebellious sinners is ludicrous.
Sodom and Gomorrah, the occupation of the Promised Land are two evidences of God's wrath being shown on humans. Many of these people did not know better, yet they suffered.
How much more severely will those who do know and not believe be dealt with.
Hellfire, whereby one is tormented eternally for temporal sins has pagan roots and is not biblical. In fact, in the Old Testament God was disgusted when his people followed the pagan religion of their neighbors and sacrficed their children by fire. What you are advocating has roots in paganism and not the Old Testament law.
In the time of Lot when Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed those people's death was likely the equivalent of an atomic bomb being dropped on their heads. There death was likely very fast. They received the death penalty to await God's judgement as did those who died in the Flood. They were not tormented for days and days like you are advocating.
Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man...living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time.
Hellfire, whereby one is tormented eternally for temporal sins has pagan roots and is not biblical. In fact, in the Old Testament God was disgusted when his people followed the pagan religion of their neighbors and sacrficed their children by fire. What you are advocating has roots in paganism and not the Old Testament law.
In the time of Lot when Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed those people's death was likely the equivalent of an atomic bomb being dropped on their heads. There death was likely very fast. They received the death penalty to await God's judgement as did those who died in the Flood. They were not tormented for days and days like you are advocating.
The paganism charge is a typical accusation coming from people who believe they have unlocked secrets from the Bible kept for 2,000 years. Check out some Christian history and see what the early believers really believed.
But S&G will be judged again. They will get a lighter sentence than anyone who misleads a child.
But did not God send his holy fire down from heaven to wipe out the altar erected for Baal?
When it is judgment, God uses fire often. Jesus said the fire is reserved for Satan and his angels.But people will go there too and it won't be pleasant. That's why I want others to come to know Jesus now, before they have to face that reality.
Check out some Christian history and see what the early believers really believed.
From what I understand historically, the Greeks reading from the Greek New Testament were more inclined to side with a limitation to punishment and the reconciliation of all by God through Jesus Christ at the end of the ages. A few of the Roman Latins on the other hand, under the influence of Augustine who did not know Greek and instead got his theology from later Latin versions of the bible, believed in eternal torment for the sinners.
There seems to be three camps of belief on this. I used to believe in fire as a form of annihilation and that the unbelievers would be burned and then cease to exist in the lake of fire. This was the popular teaching in the Way denomination.
Def is in the camp of believing that the unbelievers will be tormented eternally for their temporal lifetime of sin. He likely has gotten this theology from his church or place of worship. On more than a few posts he seems very concerned with keeping the status quo of religiosity and once even chided me for not going along with the more popular traditional church doctrines. For many churches, unfortunately, this may include the threat of eternal torment as a motivation of keeping in check the masses while keeping church attendance high.
I have changed my previous beliefs on this subject and am now in the third camp of doctrinal views on this subject. I believe that God is not a failure and that through Jesus Christ he will restore and reconcile all men and women unto Himself through His Son Jesus Christ and not just a few people. I believe that God will use the Lake of Fire written about in chapter 20 of the book of Revelation as a form of purification for the ungodly and not as a means of annihilation or eternal torment. Since I am not a regular church goer my belief is based on an actual personal study of the scriptures and if you have followed this thread and read it in its entirety you would know that I have literally pages and pages and pages of scriptural material to back up my position. And I have pages and pages more which I have not yet posted.
Thank you Def for motivating me to share this material which I think is very important for the Christian church to gain a knowledge of. And now in answer to your question, from the book "The Judgments of the Divine Law" by Stephen Jones.
Chapter 6
What the Greek Church Fathers Believed
The early Church fathers did not concern themselves with in-depth theology, but focused upon the person of Christ, the work that He accomplished, and how He fulfilled biblical prophecy in the law and prophets. The terms that they used of the judgment to come was essentially the same as the writers of the New Testament. Because they seldom felt the need to define their terms specifically, there is no way to prove what they believed, except by their use of the term aionios. Nonetheless, in the second century we begin to see some evidence as to how they generally understood this fiery judgment.
Irenaeus of Lyons, Gaul (120-202 A.D.)
Irenaeus was the Church leader from Lyons, a city in southern Gaul, which is now France. He died in 202 with thousands of fellow Christians during the persecution of Roman Emperor Severus. He wrote five books called Against Heresies. (See The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, edited by Roberts and Donaldson, 1994 reprint of the 1885 book.) He often writes of aionian judgment, and closes his monumental work with a commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:25 and 26, saying,
“For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For in the times of the kingdom, the righteous man who is upon the earth shall then forget to die. But when He saith, All things shall be subdued unto Him, it is manifest that He is excepted who did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.
“John, therefore, did distinctly foresee the first ‘resurrection of the just,’ and the inheritance in the kingdom of the earth; and what the prophets have prophesied concerning it harmonize [with his vision]. For the Lord also taught these things, when He promised that He would have the mixed cup new with His disciples in the kingdom. The apostle, too, has confessed that the creation shall be free from the bondage of corruption, [so as to pass] into the liberty of the sons of God. And in all these things, and by them all, the same God the Father is manifested, who fashioned man, and gave promise of the inheritance of the earth to the fathers, who brought it (the creature) forth [from bondage] at the resurrection of the just, and fulfills the promises for the kingdom of His Son. . . .”
Here we see that Irenaeus understood that the creation itself would ultimately be set free from corruption and pass into the liberty of the sons of God.
Again, in one of Irenaeus’ books that is now lost, we find another author quoting from it, giving us what is called a “fragment.” There are 55 fragments attributed to Irenaeus. Fragment number 39 reads,
“Christ, who was called the Son of God before the ages, was manifested in the fullness of time, in order that He might cleanse us through His blood, who were under the power of sin, presenting us as pure sons to His Father, if we yield ourselves obediently to the chastisement of the Spirit. And in the end of time He shall come to do away with all evil, and to reconcile all things, in order that there may be an end of all impurities.”
Here it is clear that Irenaeus believed in the reconciliation of all things at the end of time. So when Irenaeus speaks of aionios judgment of the wicked, we are inescapably drawn to the conclusion that he did not think the judgment would continue for all time.
Clement of Alexandria (150-213 A.D.)
Clement was born in Athens, Greece, and later moved to Alexandria, Egypt, where he became the head of the Church from 190-203. He fled for his life in 203 during the persecution of the Roman Emperor, Severus, and spent his remaining years teaching in Antioch and Palestine. In Stromata, VII, 26, Clement wrote,
“God does not wreak vengeance, for vengeance is to return evil for evil, and God punishes only with an eye to the good.”
Clement also comments on Paul’s statement in 1 Timothy 4:9-11, which says,
9 It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. 10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of the believers. 11 Prescribe and teach these things.
In his comment, Clement shows that he understood Paul to mean that there was a “general” salvation of all men, as well as a “particular” salvation and reward for believers. Stromata VII, 2:5-12 says,
“Wherefore also all men are His; some through knowledge, and others not yet so . . . For He is the Savior; not the Saviour of some, and of others not . . . Nor can He who is the Lord of All (and serves above all the will of the Good and Almighty Father) ever be hindered by another …And how is He Saviour and Lord, if not the Saviour and Lord of all? But He is the Saviour of those who have believed . . . and the Lord of those who have not believed, till, being enabled to confess Him, they obtain the peculiar and appropriate book which comes by Him. [Christ is] the First Administrator of the Universe, Who by the will of the Father directs the salvation of all . . . (the One only Almighty Good God—from the eon and for the eon saving by His Son) . . . for all things are arranged with a view to the salvation of the Universe by the Lord of the Universe, both generally and particularly . . . .”
Clement then speaks of the nature of the fiery judgment at the Great White Throne where unbelievers will be judged:
“But necessary corrections, through the goodness of the great Overseeing Judge, both by the attendant angels, and through various preliminary judgments, or through the Great and Final Judgment, compel egregious sinners to repent.”
It was Clement’s opinion that the judgment would “compel egregious sinners to repent.” I do not mean to quibble, but in this I differ slightly with Clement. Any time a sinner is compelled to repent, the change is only superficial. The judgment of the law can only constrain the sinner’s behavior and limit his actions to what is lawfully acceptable. Only the love of God will change the heart and cause the sinner to truly repent.
Clement wrote again about the nature of God’s fiery judgment in Stromata VII, 6,
“We say that the fire purifies not the flesh but sinful souls, not an all-devouring vulgar fire, but the ‘wise fire’ as we call it, the fire that ‘pierceth the soul’ which passes through it.”
Clement writes in Ecl. Proph., XXV, 4, that the fire is “wise,”
“Fire is conceived of as a beneficent and strong power, destroying what is base, preserving what is good; therefore this fire is called ‘wise’ by the Prophets.”
Clement writes in The Instructor, I, 8, that the purpose of fire is to restore sinners,
“Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful state.”
Again, he writes in Stromata VII, 3:17,
“. . . at any rate, even suffering is found to be useful alike in medicine and in education, and in punishment; and by means of it, characters are improved for the benefit of mankind.”
Finally, in Clement’s commentary on 1 John, he writes,
(On 1 John 1:5) “And in Him is no darkness at all,” that is, no passion, no keeping up of evil respecting anyone; He destroys no one, but gives salvation to all.”
(On 1 John 2:2) “ ‘And not only for our sins,’ that is, for those of the faithful, is the Lord the Propitiator does he say, ‘but also for the whole world.’ He, indeed, saves all; but some He saves converting them by punishments; others, however, who follow voluntarily He saves with dignity of honour; so that ‘every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, or things on earth, and things under the earth’—that is, angels and men.”
Clement clearly believed in the salvation of all men back to God. Some, he says, are reconciled voluntarily—and these are those who believe in Christ during the ages prior to the first resurrection. Others, he says, will be saved by means of “punishments.” I do not know what Greek word Clement was using, but I myself would use the word “judgment” rather than punishment in order to better manifest the purpose of the divine law (fire).
Origen of Alexandria (185-254 A.D.)
Origen was a student of Clement who became the head of the school in Alexandria after Clement was forced to flee. Origen is the most well-known of the early teachers of the restoration of all things. He wrote extensively and was the first to write a systematic theology of early Church belief. For this reason, the people today who oppose the teaching of restoration often call it “Origenism,” as if to imply that it was invented and believed almost exclusively by this one man and a few followers.
But such a view merely portrays either prejudice or ignorance, since Origen did not differ substantially from the teachings of Clement, his mentor, or Pantaenus before him. In Volume 6 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, page 3, in the introduction to the writings of Gregory Thaumaturgus, the editors tell us,
“Alexandria continues to be the head of Christian learning. . . We have already observed the continuity of the great Alexandrian school; how it arose, and how Pantaenus begat Clement, and Clement begat Origen. So Origen begat Gregory, and so the Lord has provided for the spiritual generation of the Church’s teachers, age after age, from the beginning. Truly, the Lord gave to Origen a holy seed, better than natural sons and daughters.”
Origen is more well known than Clement or Pantaenus, because he produced the first real systematic theology in the early Church, called First Principles. And so he later became the “lightning rod” of his opponents’ wrath. Hence, the doctrine of the restoration of all things has been mislabeled “Origenism,” as if to imply that he invented the teaching. Nothing could be further from the truth, as every good Church historian knows. To include all that Origen writes about the nature and duration of God’s fiery judgment would take a large book in itself, and so we will include a sampling of what he wrote. In his book Against Celsus, IV, 13, he writes,
“The Sacred Scripture does, indeed, call our God ‘a consuming fire’ [Heb. 12:29], and says that ‘rivers of fire go before His face’ [Dan. 7:10], and that ‘He shall come as a refiner’s fire and purify the people’ [Mal. 3:2-3]. As therefore, God is a consuming fire; what is it that is to be consumed by Him? We say it is wickedness, and whatever proceeds from it, such as is figuratively called ‘wood, hay, and stubble’ [1 Cor. 3:15]—which denote the evil works of man. Our God is a consuming fire in this sense; and He shall come as a refiner’s fire to purify rational nature from the alloy of wickedness and other impure matter which has adulterated the intellectual gold and silver; consuming whatever evil is admixed in all the soul.”
Origen, like most Christians in the second century, seems to have lost the knowledge of biblical law. Hence, he seems to think that the “fire” is painful to the sinner. This may simply be because Origen held what is called “the doctrine of reserve,” believing that certain truths ought to be held in secret. It may be, then, that he taught in public that the fiery judgment upon sinners was physically painful, though temporary, but in private he may have thought otherwise. That is a matter of debate. In speaking of the duration of the fiery judgment, Origen writes in his Commentary in Epistle to the Romans, VIII, 11,
“But how long this purification which is wrought out by penal fire shall endure, or for how many eons it shall torment sinners, He only knows to Whom all judgment is committed by the Father.”
Again, Origen writes in First Principles, I, 6:3,
“And so it happens that some in the first, others in the second, and others even in the last times, through their endurance of greater and more severe punishments of long duration, extending, if I may say so, over many eons, are by these very stern methods of correction renewed and restored . . . .”
This is an example of how Origen taught that the “penal fire” would “torment sinners” for “many eons.” Certainly, he did not understand the concept of the Jubilee and how it mandated a limitation of all debt, or liability for sin. In this way, I differ from Origen’s teaching, for I view the divine law as judgment, not punishment or torment. Nonetheless, we are in agreement that the goal of this fiery judgment is not to destroy sinners, but to restore them to God.
Novatian of Rome (circa 250 A.D.)
This great Presbyter of the Church in Rome also held the doctrine of the purifying nature of divine judgment. In De Regula Fidei, IV, he wrote that the. . .
“. . . wrath and indignation of the Lord, so-called, are not such passions as bear those names in man; but that they are operations of the Divine Mind directly solely to our purification.”
Didymus the Blind (308-395 A.D.)
Didymus also held to the concept of divine punishment, rather than what I would call judgment. He says in De. Span. San. II,
“For although the Judge at times inflicts tortures and anguish on those who merit them, yet he who more deeply scans the reason of things, perceiving the purpose of His goodness, who desires to amend the sinner, confesses Him to be good. He who is our Lord and Saviour inflicts on us everything that may lead us to Salvation; inflicting on us according to His mercy, yet doing this in His judgment.”
In his Commentary on 1 Peter, III, he writes,
“As mankind by being reclaimed from their sins are to be subjected to Christ in the dispensation appointed for the Salvation of all, so the angels will be reduced to obedience by the correction of their vices.”
Gregory of Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople (325-390 A.D.)
Gregory was educated in Alexandria and in Athens. Along with his friend, Basil, they compiled a collection of Origen’s writings called Philokalia, or Love of the Beautiful. He ultimately became the bishop of Constantinople and was known as one of the four Eastern Doctors of the Church. Robert Payne writes on page 179 of his book, The Fathers of the Eastern Church,
“Of all the Fathers of the Church, he was the only one to be granted after his death the title “Theologian,” which until this time was reserved for an apostle—John of Patmos.”
Gregory wrote this (Orat. XXXIX, 19) about the lake of fire:
“These (apostates), if they will, may go our way, which indeed is Christ’s; but if not, let them go their own way. In another place perhaps they shall be baptized with fire, that last baptism, which is not only very painful, but enduring also; which eats up, as it were hay, all defiled matter, and consumes all vanity and vice.”
Gregory, Bishop of Nyassa (335-395 A.D.)
This Gregory was the younger brother of Basil, the friend of Gregory of Nazianzen. He was the bishop of Nyassa, a town in Cappadocia. Robert Payne says of him in his book, The Fathers of the Eastern Church, page 168, 169,
“Of the three Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nyassa is the one closest to us, the least proud, the most subtle, the one most committed to the magnificence of men. That strange, simple, happy, unhappy, intelligent, and God-tormented man was possessed by angels. . . In Eastern Christianity his Great Catechism follows immediately after Origen’s First Principles. These were the two seminal works, close-woven, astonishingly lucid, final . . . Athanasius was the hammer, Basil the stern commander, Gregory of Nazianzus the tormented singer, and it was left to Gregory of Nyassa to be the man enchanted with Christ . . . Four hundred years after his death, at the Seventh General Council held in A.D. 787, the assembled princes of the Church granted him a title which exceeded in their eyes all the other titles granted to men: he was called ‘Father of Fathers’.”
In Gregory’s Orat. in 1 Cor. 15:28, 32-44, where the Apostle Paul writes of all things being restored to God at the end of time, he writes,
“33. So I begin by asking what is the truth that the divine apostle intends to convey in this passage? It is this. In due course evil will pass over into non-existence; it will disappear utterly from the realm of existence. Divine and uncompounded goodness will encompass within itself every rational nature; no single being created by God will fail to achieve the kingdom of God. The evil that is now present in everything will be consumed like a base metal melted by the purifying flame. Then everything which derives from God will be as it was in the beginning before it had ever received an admixture of evil. . .
40. And this is the ultimate goal of our hope, that nothing should be left in opposition to the good, but that the divine life should permeate everything and abolish death from every being, the sin, from which as we have already said, death secured its hold over men, having already been destroyed. . . [Here he quotes from 1 Cor. 15:22-28 ending with “God will be all in all.”]
44. That last phrase, which speaks of God coming to be in all by becoming all to each, clearly portrays the non-existence of evil. Obviously, God will be ‘in all’ only when no trace of evil is to be found in anything. For God cannot be in what is evil. So either He will not be ‘in all’ and some evil will be left in things, or, if we are to believe that He is ‘in all,’ then that belief declares that there will be no evil. For God cannot be in what is evil.”
In Gregory’s Comm. on Psalm 54:17, he writes about divine judgment and its purpose to restore mankind, saying,
“The Lord will, in His just judgment, destroy the wickedness of sinners; not their nature . . . Wickedness being thus destroyed, and its imprint being left in none, we shall all be fashioned after Christ, and in all that one character shall shine, which was originally imprinted on our nature.”
In Gregory’s De Anima et Resurrectione, he comments on the second death, saying,
“They who live in the flesh ought, by virtuous conversation, to free themselves from fleshly lusts, lest after death, they should again need another death, to cleanse away the remains of fleshly vice that cling to them.”
We know, of course, from Revelation 20:14 that the second death is the lake of fire. It is obvious from this that Gregory believed that the second death—the lake of fire—was God’s manner of cleansing the sinners, not of destroying them. After all, Revelation 20 makes it clear that the lake of fire is for unbelievers, not believers, and so Gregory was speaking about the cleansing of unbelievers.
Victorinus (circa 360 A.D.)
In his book Adv. Arium I, 3, he writes that Christ will . . .
“. . . regenerate all things, as He created all things. By the life that is in Him all things will be cleansed and return into eonian life. Christ is to subject all things to Himself . . . when this shall have been accomplished, God will be in all things, because all things will be full of God.”
Jerome, Bishop of Bethlehem (340-419 A.D.)
It was in Jerome’s day (400 A.D.) that the belief in the salvation of all men came to be questioned officially. It arose in Alexandria as the by-product of a petty dispute over money. There arose in Alexandria an unscrupulous bishop named Theophilus who became offended when a rich widow gave money to one of his deacons (Isidorus) in order to use the money to buy clothing for poor women. (She knew that if she gave the money to Theophilus, he would use it on his building projects.) Theophilus flew into a rage and banished Isidorus.
In my book, Creation’s Jubilee, I wrote a summary of the story on page 115, saying,
“It happened that Isidorus was a great admirer of Origen. So to get even with Isidorus, Theophilus called together a synod of a few loyal bishops, condemned Origen as a heretic, and forbade anyone henceforth to read his works. When a group of 300 Nitrian monks refused to acquiesce in denouncing Origen, he then sent armed men to attack and kill them. Eighty of these monks, however, escaped, making their way to Constantinople, appealing to the bishop there, John Chrysostom, who, they knew, was a man of great integrity. John was horrified, and after hearing the case, he sided with the monks. However, Theophilus succeeded by outrageous accusations to depose John and send him into exile. He ultimately drove John to his death. These accusations were gleefully translated into Latin by Jerome, who, according to historian, Hans von Campenhausen, ‘lost all feeling of decency and veracity’ (The Father of the Latin Church, p. 178).”
Up until that time Jerome had written much about the restoration of all mankind. But during this controversy, he wrote to the bishop of Rome, asking him what position he should take. The bishop sided with Theophilus, so Jerome suddenly stopped teaching the salvation of all men. In one of his earlier writings, though, Jerome wrote (In Eph. 4:16),
“In the end of all things the whole body which has been dissipated will be restored . . . What I mean is, the fallen Angel will begin to be that which he was created, and man, who was expelled from Paradise, will once more be restored to the tilling of Paradise. These things will then take place universally.”
John Chrysostom (347-407 A.D.)
John was one of the most famous of the bishops of Constantinople in the late fourth century. He is the bishop to whom the surviving Nitrian monks appealed when attacked by the soldiers of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria. His writings are not so clear as to make it certain of his belief concerning the salvation of all, but he does give some hints as to his belief in the purpose of judgment. In his Hom. IX in Epis. Ad Rom. 5:11, he writes,
“. . . if punishment were an evil to the sinner, God would not have added evils to the evil . . . all punishment is owing to His loving us, by pains to recover us and lead us to Him, and to deliver us from sin which is worse than hell.”
This same teaching can be found in his Hom. V, 2 de Statuis; and in Hom. III, 2 in Epis. Ad Philem. 1:25. The problem is that there are many places in his writings where he seems to teach endless punishment. We believe that this is because he held the doctrine of reserve, where some thought it better to threaten with greater punishments than they themselves actually believed God would inflict—in order to discourage people from turning away from God.
Titus, Bishop of Bostra (circa 364 A.D.)
This bishop wrote a book against the Manichean religion that had been started in the third century by a man named Mani. Manicheanism taught Persian Dualism, where time would end with the separation of light from darkness. That is, good and evil would continue to co-exist side by side. The Christian Church adopted parts of this view in teaching that the ultimate goal of history would be heaven and hell forever co-existing. Titus’ book, Against Manichaeans, Book I refutes this idea, saying,
“. . . the punishments of God are Holy, as they are remedial and salutary in their effect upon transgressors; for they are inflicted, not to preserve them in their wickedness, but to make them cease from their sins. The abyss . . . is indeed the place of punishment, but it is not endless. The anguish of their sufferings compels them to break off from their sins.”
Perhaps this gives us some idea why Augustine, the ex-Manichean, could not shake the idea that evil would exist forever in the sinners sent to the lake of fire.
Ambrose of Milan (340-397 A.D.)
Ambrose was the one through whom Augustine was converted from Manicheanism to Christianity. Ambrose wrote in his In Psalm 1, ch. 54,
“Our Saviour has appointed two kinds of resurrection, in accordance with which John says, in the Apocalypse, ‘Blessed is he that hath part in the first resurrection;’ for such come to grace without the judgment. As for those who do not come to the first, but are reserved until the second (resurrection), these shall be burning until they fulfill their appointed times, between the first and second resurrection; or, if they should not have fulfilled in them then, they shall remain still longer in punishment.”
I find it interesting that Ambrose believed that there would be a “burning” of the sinners during the Millennium between the first and second resurrection, though John says nothing of any such thing. Ambrose himself does not tell us the nature of that fire, but he does tell us something of the duration of the judgment. He thought that some sinners would be released from the fire at the end of the thousand years, and only those who deserved a longer punishment would remain in the fire beyond the Millennium.
By no means is this a complete index of those who believed in the salvation of all men. Nor should we think that they were all agreed in every detail on how this was to be accomplished. Even so, they did all have one thing in common—they all believed that judgment would come upon the sinners, and that it was by means of this divine “fire” that all men would ultimately be saved. None of them believed that sinners would be saved apart from God’s fiery judgment.
We should also be remiss if we did not inform our readers that there were a minority of Church Fathers, particularly in the Latin-speaking Church of the Western part of the Roman Empire, who believed in eternal torment. Augustine was one. Another was Lactantius. Thus, the idea of universal reconciliation of all was not universally understood in the early Church. But even Augustine himself admitted that his own view was held by a minority of Christians. In his Enchiridion, ad Lauren. Ch. 29, Augustine wrote that there were . . .
“. . . very many, who, though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments.”
In view of Augustine’s admission, the Church today should not think it strange if some believe that God will save all mankind. They should not excommunicate or expel such Christian believers, but instead should search out the truth for themselves. And if even the search should end in disagreement, it should not become a “point of fellowship,” for if the early Church had done this, the majority of believers would have been expelled from the Church.
Christianity is based upon belief in Jesus as the Messiah, His death on the Cross in our place, His resurrection from the dead, and His ascension to the Throne in heaven, where He has been proclaimed King of all the earth. These are the essentials which define a Christian. We are justified by faith alone—not faith AND belief in any particular view of the judgments of God. We do not mean to minimize the importance of knowing the ultimate plan of God for the earth, but neither should we make these beliefs a requisite for justification.
If, then, we keep this in perspective, we will be able to discuss the things of God freely and openly in the spirit of love that Christ intended.
If, then, we keep this in perspective, we will be able to discuss the things of God freely and openly in the spirit of love that Christ intended.
I dig that!
God~~~ "...of all the religions out there, which one or ones do you think I endorse?"
~~~
I believe god created eternity so that we could understand a grasp of an inkling in a moment in the twinkling of an eye we shall all be changed and know even as we are known. Sum think about light.
When Pilate quested of Jesus , "What is truth?".
Jesus did not reply.
Why?
Was it because the "truth" was before Pilate literally, physically, breathing, and seeing things that could not be uttered?
Is it that "truth" is a "glass darkly" in this second heaven and earth?
but, if the "truth" shall make you free, "it" will make you free indeed.
So,
at the least
"truth" is
freedom free indeed.
And I think when the truth shall be made known, the revealing will be comparable to ~~~ eye hath not seen, nor ear heard the things which god has prepared... and the secret things belong unto the lourde.
~~~ or sum thing like that.
I believe god is:
all joy and laughter
merciful
green pastures
mountains and oceans
roknroll
&
light
&
power
&
might
&
dominion
&
that type of gig
or
all of the above and
condemning
fire & hell fire and brimestoners and gave the devil a pitch fork and a forked tail & tale and a forked tongue and a fork before the cross roads... boring
i would imagine that old sangel would have figured something out before the KJV recorded the hidden mystery.
Certainly not all is vanity. There is hope for all of ALL.. Especially that which is not seen nor heard.
And then the present reality of this world is unmercifully cruel.
But I live quite well in the midst or spite of it all. And that's the damnable thing of it all. One Tsunami and why rebuild in the face of another? History and seasons certainly do repeat themselves in the present now. And hell I'm only fifty years into this 4 billion year terra firma.
What's one to conclude?
That Now We Know?
If a tree fell in the woods and no one was around to witness the event, would it make a sound?
Well, "If" no one was around to witness the event, then how do you know the tree fell?
No. I do not believe we are a universe hanging out on the edge of a burning stick of Celestial Season Incense.
There is more to truth than discovering how to make a telescope and then making it into a HUBBLE.
We are only a slight moment here, but yet, ever been known.
i don't remember that!
very few remember the womb and subsequent birth.
but yet, a babe leaped in the womb in the presence of another babe in another womb.
that's a rather odd and extraordinary event to document.
If, then, we keep this in perspective, we will be able to discuss the things of God freely and openly in the spirit of love that Christ intended.
Nice sentiment Mark. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but this from the same post seems to run counter to the sentiment:
quote:
Def is in the camp of believing that the unbelievers will be tormented eternally for their temporal lifetime of sin. He likely has gotten this theology from his church or place of worship. On more than a few posts he seems very concerned with keeping the status quo of religiosity and once even chided me for not going along with the more popular traditional church doctrines.
It's not possible Def came by his convictions by honest study? Just as you did yours?
Really Evan? And perhaps you missed this post by Def.
quote:
The paganism charge is a typical accusation coming from people who believe they have unlocked secrets from the Bible kept for 2,000 years.
And what do you call it when someone condemns a great many to eternal torment? Is that the love of God? Is that in harmony with John 3:16 and with other scriptures from both the Old and New Testament?
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
And yes, I do believe that the doctrine of eternal torment has roots in pagan religions of the past. With that kind of belief system I am wondering how one can even look at someone eye ball to eye ball who has not confessed Christ to their religious standard without thinking they are devils incarnate or the scourge of God. If you know then please tell me where such a low opinion of others with differing views comes from?
As to the rest, I call it a difference of opinion. That's all.
We disagree, I am sure, on "important" points of doctrine. But I don't have a low opinion of you based on your beliefs. Not at all. People who downtalk others with differing views are simply ill-mannered. I don't consider it some manifestation of evil due to "wrong believing" or some such thing. One can refute or otherwise argue points with tremendous vehemence without resorting to vituperation, or without assigning inner motives to another one doesn't even know.
I have been 50 years into this billions year world and billions years more exsisted before this world and beyond my arithmatic~~~ called before something that did not exist before the calling ~~~ hmm think there is something to think about?
Well, I gotta pay my bills till I die.
Such a short life of abundance unless one considers the "IN YOU" type of gig JC expressed. Whatever that may mean that the Kingdom of God is within you.
First point, second point, jeesh, is it Square Level Plumb or not?
Really Evan? And perhaps you missed this post by Def.
quote:
The paganism charge is a typical accusation coming from people who believe they have unlocked secrets from the Bible kept for 2,000 years.
And what do you call it when someone condemns a great many to eternal torment? Is that the love of God? Is that in harmony with John 3:16 and with other scriptures from both the Old and New Testament?
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
The key word is BELIEVES. What is going to happen to those who do not believe? They will perish.
And yes, I do believe that the doctrine of eternal torment has roots in pagan religions of the past. With that kind of belief system I am wondering how one can even look at someone eye ball to eye ball who has not confessed Christ to their religious standard without thinking they are devils incarnate or the scourge of God. If you know then please tell me where such a low opinion of others with differing views comes from?
Mark, you are basing much of your argument on a humanistic approach to God. From our perspective it does not seem fair that eternal torment should follow a finite life. But that is what the scriptures teach and I have given you a real live Bible scholar to contact to discuss it with. I look at others the same as I look at myself. The lost are lost until they are saved. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Only through Christ do I amount to anything. Only through Christ does anyone else.
Def, the problem with your bible scholar is that he is breaking his own rules. One is suppose to base an understanding of Greek words found in the New Testament solely on the actual biblical usages with context. For the word "aion", some of his understanding he is getting from church tradition. And some of his church tradition contradicts a number of the actual biblical usages of this word. Would you like me to post again the actual verses that contradict part of his definition for the word "aion"?
I did a word study on "chosen" and I cam across this passage, which I believe sort of blows out the idea of everyone getting to heaven.
The Parable of the Wedding Banquet
1Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
4“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
5“But they paid no attention and went off–one to his field, another to his business. 6The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
8“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
11“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.
13“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
Def, the problem with your bible scholar is that he is breaking his own rules. One is suppose to base an understanding of Greek words found in the New Testament solely on the actual biblical usages with context. For the word "aion", some of his understanding he is getting from church tradition. And some of his church tradition contradicts a number of the actual biblical usages of this word. Would you like me to post again the actual verses that contradict part of his definition for the word "aion"?
Why is it that when anyone disagrees with you, you play the tradition card. I think Prof. Fairchild has given two good replies. Maybe you are relying on your own understanding and not heeding the spirit's call?
Def, I will post again the contradictions according to biblical usage. My understanding is based on a study of the scriptures as I hope yours is. And one only has to read this thread to realize that I have a lot of scriptural material in support of my position. The bible says to try or test the spirits to see whether they are of God or not. How do we test them you ask? We must compare what we think we are getting by the spirit with the written word of God.
From Mark Fairchild, Ph.D., professor of Bible and Religion at Huntington College in Indiana.
"Aion" can be taken in many ways.
1) a lifetime
2) an age or generation
3) destiny
4) a long space of time
5) forever
6) a designated space of time
7) a supernatural being
In providing definitions for Greek words one must be disciplined to base their understanding solely on actual biblical usages of the word. From reading his many definitions I don't think Fairchild has done this.
First I notice definitions 1 and 2 which are related, a lifetime, an age or generation. There is actually another Greek word that describes this better. It is the Greek word "genea". This is Strong's number 1074 and refers to an age in the context of the generation of men as part of a family. We get our word genealogy from this.
Some of the other 7 listed are somewhat vague, for example 3 (destiny), while number 7 (a supernatural being) is perhaps in Fairchild's thinking because God is the God of the aeons. The original meaning of The word aion I understand was ‘vital force,’ ‘life;’ and then ‘age,’.
His definition number 5 (forever) is contradicted by a number of usages. Some usages of "aion" that show "aion" to have an ending are directly below. The English word in quotation marks is "aion" in the Greek.
Matt 13:39-40
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the "world"; and the reapers are the angels.
40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this "world".
KJV
Matt 13:49
49 So shall it be at the end of the "world": the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
KJV
Matt 24:3
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the "world"?
KJV
Matt 28:20
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the "world". Amen.
KJV
1 Cor 2:6
6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this "world", nor of the princes of this "world", that come to nought
KJV
1 Cor 10:11
11 Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the "world" are come.
KJV
Heb 9:26
26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the "world" hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
KJV
Below we see "aion" having a beginning. This also would indicate that "aion" is not synonymous with eternal or forever.
Luke 1:70
70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the "world" began:
KJV
John 9:32
32 Since "the world began" was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.
KJV
Acts 3:21
21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the "world began".
KJV
Acts 15:18
18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the "world".
KJV
Eph 3:9
9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the "beginning of the world" hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
KJV
Below we see "age" can be a time in the future and thus have a beginning. This also would indicate that it is not synonymous with eternal or forever.
Matt 12:32
32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this "world", neither in the world to come.
KJV
Luke 18:30
30 Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the "world" to come life everlasting.
KJV
1 Cor 2:7
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the "world" unto our glory:
KJV
Eph 2:7
7 That in the "ages" (for once the King James version translates it correctly) to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.KJV
Heb 6:5
5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers "of the world" to come,
KJV
And below we have usages of "aion" which show that it has a present time that is distinct from both the future and the past.
Gal 1:4-5
4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil "world", according to the will of God and our Father:
5 To whom be glory for "ever" and "ever". Amen.
KJV
Eph 1:21
21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this "world", but also in that which is to come:
KJV
2 Tim 4:10
10 For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present "world", and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.
KJV
To summarize in developing and deriving definitions of Greek words from the bible one must do this based on actual biblical usages of the word in question. This is both foundational and essential. If one does not follow this procedure their understanding is not helpful and this is not good biblical scholarship. For example, one could take a Greek word that is used in mythological writings and use this as a basis for understanding a biblical word and concept. In so doing one may have gained knowledge, but the actual knowledge gained may be mythology which has been mistaken for the word of God.
Recommended Posts
Top Posters In This Topic
27
86
73
57
Popular Days
Jan 25
22
Apr 27
18
Jan 26
17
Jan 24
12
Top Posters In This Topic
TheInvisibleDan 27 posts
def59 86 posts
Mark Sanguinetti 73 posts
CKnapp3 57 posts
Popular Days
Jan 25 2005
22 posts
Apr 27 2005
18 posts
Jan 26 2005
17 posts
Jan 24 2005
12 posts
def59
Now I want to get to 1,500.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Sanguinetti
From a book by Stephen Jones titled The Judgements of the Divine Law.
Chapter 5
The Eonian Judgment
In any discussion of the duration of the lake of fire, it inevitably boils down to the meaning of the Greek word aionios and the Hebrew word olam. The words literally mean “age” or “age-abiding,” but they are often translated “eternal” or “everlasting” in the modern English translations. And so, this normally becomes the central issue.
The judgments of God are aionios (and olam) in duration. This Greek term has been misunderstood for about 1,500 years, but the early Church in Asia, Greece, and Egypt understood it to mean “pertaining to an eon.” It is the adjective form of the Greek word eon, that is, an AGE. In spite of this, many English translations continue to translate the word to mean “eternal” or “everlasting,” because of their doctrinal bias.
Strong’s Concordance says this about the Greek word aion:
“aion: from the same as 104 [aei, ‘continued duration’]; prop. an age; by extens. perpetuity (also past); by impl. the world; spec. (Jewish) a Messianic period (present or future).”
In other words, according to Strong’s Concordance, aion properly means “an age,” but he says that by extension it means “perpetuity.” Thus, he says that it can mean either a limited period of time or an unlimited period of time. But to make it an unlimited period of time requires extending its basic, usual meaning, which is limited.
He also shows that in Jewish usage of the term, “The Age” referred to the Messianic Age—that is, the age in which the Messiah would rule the earth. This particular application, we will discuss shortly.
Dr. Bullinger, in his Appendix 129 to The Companion Bible, says:
“aion = an age, or age-time, the duration of which is indefinite, and may be limited or extended as the context of each occurrence may demand.
“The root meaning of aion is expressed by the Heb. olam . . . which denotes indefinite, unknown or concealed duration; just as we speak of ‘the patriarchal age’, or ‘the golden age’, etc. Hence, it has come to denote any given period of time, characterized by a special form of Divine administration or dispensation.
“In the plural we have the Heb. olamim and Gr. aiones used of ages, or of a succession of age-times, and of an abiding from age to age. From this comes the adjective aionios . . . used of an unrestricted duration, as distinct from a particular or limited age-time. These age-times must be distinct or they could not be added to, or multiplied, as in the expression aions of aions.
“These ages or age-times were all prepared and arranged by God (see Heb. 1:2; 11:3); and there is a constant distinction in the New Testament between ‘this age’ and the ‘coming age’ (see Matt. 12:32; Heb. 1:2; Eph. 1:21).”
Thus, Dr. Bullinger agrees with Strong that the basic meaning of aion is an age that lasts an indefinite period of time. In other words, some ages are longer than others, but an age has both a beginning and an end.
The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. IV, p. 643, says under “Time,”
“The OT and the NT are not acquainted with this conception of eternity as timelessness. God, according to Rev. 1:4, is the one ‘who is and who was and who is to come’; and if in Rom. 16:26 (the only time in the NT) he is called the ‘eternal [aionios] God,’ this does not mean that as a timeless God he would have nothing to do with time, but rather that he is also Lord of the greatest spans of time, which he uses in his revelation (vs. 25).”
On page 644 of the same article, it says:
“The OT has not developed a special term for ‘eternity’ which one could contrast with ‘temporality’.”
On page 645 it says,
“The word aion originally meant ‘vital force,’ ‘life;’ then ‘age,’ ‘lifetime.’ It is, however, also used generally of a (limited or unlimited) long space of time. In many cases it should then be translated by ‘eternity.’ To be sure, naturally, one cannot assume a philosophical concept of eternity here either.”
Later on the same page, the author continues,
“The use of the word aion is determined very much by the OT and the LXX [septuagint]. Aion means ‘long distant uninterrupted time’ in the past (Luke 1:70), as well as in the future (John 4:14). The adjective aionios, ‘eternal,’ especially, serves for the actual statements of eternity (2 Cor. 4:18; Heb. 9:12, 15), but nowhere is a clear distinction made between limited and unlimited duration of time …. The intensifying plural occurs frequently in the NT, especially in the doxologies (Rom. 1:25; 9:5; Heb. 13:8), but it adds no new meaning.”
This should be sufficient to show that it is by no means certain that the Hebrew word olam (Old Testament) and the Greek word aionios (New Testament) must be translated “eternal” or “everlasting.” This is plainly stated in many theological dictionaries and other articles. It is unfortunate that this fact is not transmitted to the average Christian believer—or even to the preachers and teachers, who seem totally convinced that these words can mean nothing other than unending time.
But if olam and aionios occasionally should be understood in terms of unending time, these occasions are the exception to the general rule. It may be that when aionios is used a few times in reference to God that it could be understood in terms of unending time, rather than to His sovereignty over those future ages. We will let the scholars debate this issue. Some say it can mean only a limited period of time—others insist that it can mean either limited or unlimited time.
It comes down to a matter of controversy and disagreement between scholars. So who is to be believed?
Let us, for the moment, concede to the opposition. Let us agree with them that aionios can mean either endlessness or a limited period of time. If that were the case, then every passage which uses this term will be interpreted according to the bias of the translator. All the passages that deal with aionios judgment can mean either endless judgment or age-abiding judgment, depending upon how we wish to understand it.
If this were the case, then it would be impossible to prove EITHER view by using the Biblical passages that talk about aionios judgment. We must then rely totally upon other Bible passages to prove either view. We challenge anyone believing eternal judgment to prove their case without using any verse talking about aionios judgment or olam judgment. The fact is, THEY HAVE NO CASE, because these verses form the entire basis of their doctrine. Their entire case rests upon the assumption that aionios and olam mean endlessness.
Many scholars do not believe that there is a single passage where aionios MUST always mean endlessness. However, we do recognize that there are passages where the word seems to imply endlessness. For this reason, we are willing to concede the point for the sake of argument. Conceding this point in no way diminishes the force of our argument, because the Bible teaches the Restoration of All Things from Genesis to Revelation without relying upon the word aionios.
We can prove that God will save all men by showing that the divine law mandates a Jubilee, which is a limit to all judgment. We do not need to rely upon the word aionios.
We can prove that God will save all men by the passages in the New Testament where Jesus came to save not only us, but “the whole world” (1 John 2:2). We do not need to rely upon the word aionios. We rely instead upon the phrase “the whole world.”
We can show it by Paul’s writings, who said that all things (ta panta, “the all”) were created by Christ and will be reconciled to him as well (Col. 1:16-20). In this, we rely upon the phrase, ta panta, which is defined by the context as meaning the created universe.
We can show it again in Paul’s writings, when he said that “as in Adam all die, even in Christ will all be made alive” (1 Cor. 15:22). Even as ALL die in Adam, so will ALL be made alive in Christ. We do not need to use aionios to prove this.
We can go to the last book of the Bible, where John sees all of creation praising God in Rev. 5:13,
13 And every created thing which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all things in them, I heard saying, To Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever [aionas ton aionon, “for the ages of the ages”].
This passages uses the phrase aionas ton aionon, but our argument does not rest upon that phrase, but upon the earlier phrase, “every created thing.” In these few passages there are many ways in which God’s great Restoration of creation is expressed and established. All we must do is show that aionios does not have to mean endless time. Once we have established that fact—as we have done—then it is self-evident that aionios judgment cannot be used to contradict our view.
The bottom line is this: all we must do is show that aionios does not ALWAYS have to be understood as endless time. If we can show that, then we have won the debate, because if it can mean either limited or unlimited time, then those who believe in eternal torment have lost their trump card. But even our opposition concedes that there are MANY passages where aionios cannot possibly mean endlessness. In fact, that is why they must fall back upon the position that aionios has a double meaning. They would dearly love to make it endless all the time, but even they know that this is impossible.
Thus, from a clear-headed perspective, one can only conclude that God intends to bring all creation back under His dominion and will lose nothing in the end. The blood of Jesus to save His creation is more powerful than the sin of Adam was in its fall. God will be the big Winner in the end—not the Big Loser who has lost 99 percent of creation to the wiles of the devil.
How Modern Translators Deal with Aionios
There are at least four modern translations, however, which attempt to correct this mistranslation:
1. Young’s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible
2. Rotherham’s The Emphasized Bible
3. Wilson’s The Emphatic Diaglott
4. The Concordant Literal Translation
Young’s Literal Translation was done by Dr. Robert Young in 1898. He was also the author of the Young’s Analytical Concordance. Dr. Young says in his Concordance that aion means “age, age-lasting.” For example, Matthew 13:39, when Jesus explained the meaning of His parable about the wheat and the tares, He said, according to the King James Version,
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world [Greek: aion, “age”]; and the reapers are the angels.
The Greek word translated world is not aion, but kosmos. So quite obviously, this is not a good translation of the verse. Most modern translations have made this correction, including the marginal references in the King James. Dr. Young renders this verse,
39 and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is a full end of the age, and the reapers are messengers.
The Greek word aionios is the adjective form of aion, “pertaining to an age.” Young’s Concordance says that it means “age-lasting.” In his Bible translation, he consistently translates the Greek word aionios into English even more literally as “age-during” to show that it means the events occur “during” whatever age the author was discussing. This is very literal and precise. Even so, another Bible translator, Weymouth, on page 657 of The New Testament in Modern Speech, quibbles with Dr. Young, saying,
“Eternal: Greek: ‘aeonion,’ i.e., ‘of the ages.’ Etymologically this adjective, like others similarly formed, does not signify ‘during,’ but ‘belonging to’ the aeons or ages.”
I suppose we must allow scholars to dispute the fine points of each word, for that is their vocation. But regardless of who is correct, they both agree on the essential fact that aionios does not mean “eternal.” Dr. Young used this term “age-during” so that the reader would not be compelled to believe that it meant “eternal or “everlasting.” For example, in Matthew 25:45, 46, we read,
45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say to you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of these, the least, ye did it not to me. 46 And those shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during.
Rotherham’s The Emphasized Bible, is much like Young’s Literal Translation. He renders verse 46,
46 And these shall go away into age-abiding correction, but the righteous into age-abiding life.
Benjamin Wilson’s Emphatic Diaglott does not presume to render aionios “everlasting,” but prefers to just transliterate it directly from the Greek. This non-committal attitude allows men to interpret this word as they wish. He renders verse 46:
46 And these shall go forth to the aionian cutting-off; but the righteous to aionian Life.
The Cambridge Bible Commentary, by A. W. Argyle, has this to say about Matthew 25:46,
“46. eternal punishment, i.e., punishment characteristic of the Age to come, not meaning that it lasts for ever.
“eternal life, i.e., the life that belongs to the Age to come, the full abundant life which is fellowship with God.”
Argyle recognizes that the term aionios refers to “the Age to come” rather than eternity as such. In our next section we will have more to say about “The Age,” that is, the Messianic Age. This is the key to understanding how aion and aionios were defined when the Bible was written—and for many years afterward.
Wilson’s translation is prefaced by the statement,
“This Volume, principally designed for the instruction and advantage of others, is now reverently committed to the blessing of our Father in the heavens, with an earnest and sincere desire that many of those who peruse its pages may be led by the knowledge, faith and obedience inculcated therein to obtain an inheritance in the aionian kingdom of Jesus the Anointed One.”
Some will say that the Kingdom has “no end” (Luke 1:33); thus, they will say, aionian must be everlasting. The term “aionian kingdom” is used only once in the Bible—in 2 Peter 1:11, where the Apostle says (according to Wilson himself in The Emphatic Diaglott),
10 Therefore, brethren, more earnestly endeavor to make your calling and election sure; since by these things you will never fall; 11 for thus richly will be furnished to you the entrance into the aionian kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Peter, like most of the other New Testament writers, exhorted the believers to make their “calling and election sure,” that is, press on to being overcomers that will inherit the first resurrection. These will inherit “the aionian kingdom,” that is, they will receive their reward of immortality at the beginning of that thousand-year reign of Christ. Revelation 20:6 says that these will “reign with him a thousand years.” This does not mean that the kingdom lasts only a thousand years, nor even that their reign is limited to a thousand years. But that phase of the kingdom is limited to a specific age; hence it is aionian.
We will develop this concept a bit further in our next section on “The Messianic Age.” Anyway, Wilson’s term, aionian, is much like that found in The Concordant Literal New Testament, which renders verse 46,
46 And these shall be coming away into chastening eonian, yet the just into life eonian.
A second example useful for our purposes is found in Matthew 18:8, which Young’s Literal Translation renders:
8 And if thy hand or thy foot doth cause thee to stumble, cut them off and cast from thee; it is good for thee to enter into the life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast to the fire the age-during.
The Emphasized Bible says,
8 But if thy hand or thy foot be causing thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee; it is seemly for thee to enter into life maimed or lame, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the age-abiding fire.
Wilson’s The Emphatic Diaglott says,
8 If, then, thy hand or thy foot insnare thee, cut it off, and throw it away; it is better for thee to enter Life crippled or lame, than having two hands or two feet to be cast into the aionian fire.
The Concordant Literal New Testament says,
8 Now, if your hand or your foot is snaring you, strike it off and cast it from you. Is it ideal for you to be entering into life maimed or lame, or, having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the fire eonian?
We see from these examples—particularly from Matthew 25:46—that the Greek term aionios is used to describe both the judgment of fire upon the sinners and the life that is given to the believers.
In Matthew 19:29 Jesus spoke of the reward of the righteous, which is zoen aionion. This is usually translated “life eternal” or “life everlasting.” Dr. Young renders the verse,
29 and every one who left houses, or brothers, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or fields, for my name’s sake, an hundredfold shall receive and life age-during shall inherit.
The Messianic Age
What is the meaning of “life age-during?” Is it the same as immorality? Not exactly. Immortality is a word describing the quality of life that we have after death is abolished. Life that is “age-during,” describes the age in which we shall have that immortality. That age is specifically what the ancient rabbis called the “Messianic Age,” or “The Age.” Since David wrote that a day was as a thousand years (Psalm 90:4), the rabbis spoke about the seventh thousand-year period as a great Sabbath-rest for the earth. They identified it with the reign of the Messiah. Revelation 20:1-6 treats the reign of Christ in the same manner.
Irenaeus, one of the earliest of the Christian fathers (120-203 A.D.) believed that a wicked man called “Antichrist” would arise at the end of the present age. In that context, he wrote in his book, Against Heresies,
“and the number is six hundred and sixty-six, that is, six times a hundred, six times ten, and six units. [He gives this] as a summing up of the whole of that apostasy which has taken place during six thousand years. (Book V, xxviii, 2)
“For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded. . . . (Book V, xxviii, 3)
“For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.” (Book V, xxviii, 3)
“. . . bringing in for the righteous the times of the kingdom, that is, the rest, the hallowed seventh day.” (Book V, xxx, 3)
According to Revelation 20, this thousand-year reign of Christ begins with “the first resurrection” and ends with the general resurrection of the rest of the dead. This means that those who inherit the first resurrection will receive immortality during “The Age.” But as we have seen in the previous chapter and in other books, ONLY believers, but NOT ALL believers will be raised in the first resurrection. Thus, only the overcomers (the barley company—see The Barley Overcomers) will receive “life age-during.” That is, only the overcomers will receive their reward of life (immortality) at the beginning of “The Age.” Only the overcomers will have life during that thousand-year Age.
The rest of the believers will receive immortality afterward, and hence, strictly speaking, they will not receive “life age-during.” This is because they will have to receive their reward at the same time as the unbelievers receive judgment, for both will be judged. The believers will be “saved, yet so as through fire,” receiving either few stripes or many stripes. The unbelievers will be cast into the lake of fire and will serve their sentence until the great Jubilee sets all creation free.
This concept of the eons, or ages, is obscured by translating zoen aionion as “life everlasting” and kolasin aionion as “everlasting punishment.” (Matthew 25:46). The fact is that neither is “everlasting.” Certainly, immortality itself is life that never ends. But “age-during life” points specifically to AN AGE when some believers will enjoy the blessings of immortal life. And “age-during judgment” points specifically to AN AGE of judgment for unbelievers.
Augustine’s Misunderstanding
Matthew 25:46 has been used since the time of Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, in the early fifth century to prove that aionian means an unending duration of time. Though Augustine spoke eloquently in Latin, he did not speak Greek. Thus, he was unfamiliar with the language of the New Testament, except insofar as it had been translated into Latin. Peter Brown tells us in his book, Augustine of Hippo, p. 36,
“Augustine’s failure to learn Greek was a momentous casualty of the late Roman educational system; he will become the only Latin philosopher in antiquity to be virtually ignorant of Greek.”
Worse yet, the more influential Augustine became, the less the Latin Christians felt the need to read the New Testament in Greek. Peter Brown says again on p. 272,
“Gradually the ‘learned fellowship’ would cease to feel the need for Greek books. For they had Augustine.”
Perhaps this is a good illustration of what Jesus said in Matthew 6:23,
23 . . . If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.
The Christians in the Latin-speaking Church took Augustine’s word for it that aionios meant everlasting. This was their “light,” but unfortunately, their light was darkness. And even today, most of the popular translations have continued to mistranslate aionios. So average Christians today who read the easy-reading Bibles do not realize that what they think is light (in regard to future rewards and judgments) is actually darkness.
In Book XXI, chapter xxiii, of Augustine’s City of God, he sets forth his argument that the judgment upon the unbelievers would be unending torture in fire. His argument is based upon the Latin translation of Matthew 25:46, which we have already quoted earlier. Augustine interprets this passage in this way:
“For Christ said in the very same place, including both in one and the same sentence: ‘So these will go into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’ If both are eternal, then surely both must be understood as ‘long,’ but having an end, or else as ‘everlasting’ without an end. For they are matched with each other. In one clause eternal punishment, in the other eternal life. (To say) “eternal life shall be without end, (but) eternal punishment will have an end’ is utterly absurd. Hence, since eternal life of the saints will be without end, eternal punishment also will surely have no end, for those whose lot it is.”
The primary problem is that Augustine did not understand the Hebrew concept of “The Age.” He presumed that aionios life was the same as immortality, instead of seeing that it referred specifically to life (immortality) during the Messianic Age. To inherit life during this Age means to be an inheritor of the first resurrection promised to the overcomers alone. The rest of humanity, and even the rest of the Christians, will not receive their immortality until the end of the Messianic Age at the Great White Throne. We showed this in Chapter Four, quoting Jesus’ words in John 5:28, 29, as well as His parable in Luke 12:42-49. Augustine did not understand this concept.
Secondly, Augustine did not properly understand the Greek word aionios, at least not in the way that the Greek-speaking Church in Asia understood the term. He was looking at it from the Roman mindset, using an old Latin translation of the Scripture. The Latin translation at Augustine’s disposal used two different words for aionios: seculum and aeternum. Alexander Thomson’s book, Whence Eternity? says on page 11,
“Seculum meant a generation, an age, the world, the times, the spirit of the times and a period of a hundred years. That which is secular pertains to the present world, especially to the world as not spiritual.
“Long ago in Rome, periodic games were held, which were called ‘secular’ games. Herodian, the historian, writing in Greek about the end of the second or the beginning of the third century, calls these ‘eonian’ games. In no sense were the games eternal. Eonian did not mean eternal any more than a seculum meant eternity.”
Aeternas, or Aeternitas, is where we get our English words “eternal” and “eternity.” However, originally these had a double meaning, as we find in a scholar’s footnote in Augustine’s City of God, XXII, i, which says,
“The words ‘eternal’ and ‘eternity’ from Latin aeternus, aeternitas, are related to aevum, which means BOTH ‘unending time’ and ‘a period of time;’ for the second meaning the commoner word is aetas.”
This footnote was inserted in order to inform readers who did not realize that Augustine was engaging in some deceptive rhetoric. Augustine failed to mention in his book that aeternus also meant a limited period of time.
Aeternus was the Latin near-equivalent of the Greek word aionios, not because it meant unending time, but because it also meant a limited duration of time. Aeternus did have a double meaning, but Augustine applied the wrong meaning to aionios according to his own personal bias. That is why we are given the footnote in the modern publication of Augustine’s City of God.
Yet in all fairness to Augustine, at least one Church historian tells us that Augustine “all but abandoned” this argument later in life. Dr. F.W. Farrar informs us of this in his book, Mercy and Judgment, p. 378,
“Since aion meant ‘age,’ aionios means, properly, ‘belonging to an age,’ or ‘age-long,’ and anyone who asserts that it must mean ‘endless’ defends a position which even Augustine practically abandoned twelve centuries ago. Even if aion always meant ‘eternity,’ which is not the case in classic or Hellenistic Greek—aionios could still mean only ‘belonging to eternity’ and not ‘lasting through it’.”
As for Augustine’s argument that aionios in Matthew 25:46 must mean the same amount of time for both the believers and the unbelievers, this is contradicted by Dr. Alford Plumer in An Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew, pp. 351-352,
“It is often pointed out that ‘eternal’ (aionios) in ‘eternal punishment’ must have the same meaning as in ‘eternal life.’ No doubt, but that does not give us the right to say that ‘eternal’ in both cases means ‘endless’.”
We have already shown that the Bible speaks of more than one age to come. Revelation 20 makes it clear that there are at least two future ages that run concurrently. The first is the Messianic Age that was commonly believed to be the seventh millennium from creation—the Creation Sabbath. After that age was the Judgment Age of unknown duration—at least no one in those days claimed to know.
It is my belief, as I said earlier, that the divine law implies a 49,000-year time of man’s history. If we are now about to enter into the first Sabbath millennium, then the Judgment Age would have to continue for another 42,000 years beyond it, or six more great Sabbaths.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Sanguinetti
Chapter 5 of Stephen Jones' book "The Judgements of the Divine Law" continued
The Hebrew concept of Olam
The Hebrew word olam is the Old Testament equivalent of the Greek word aionios. Olam literally means “to an obscurity,” but it is understood to mean an age, that is, an indefinite period of time, but not of infinite duration. Strong’s Concordance says that olam means “concealed, i.e., to the vanishing point.”
Dr. Bullinger, in his Appendix 151 of The Companion Bible, says of olam:
“This word is derived from alam (to hide), and means the hidden time or age, like aion. . . by which word, or its Adjective aionios, it is generally rendered in the Sept.”
Under the heading “Eternal,” Smith’s Bible Dictionary (Dr. William Smith) tells us what olam means:
“Eternal (Heb. OLAM, hidden, time long past, and of future to the end).”
Thus, Strong, Bullinger, and Smith all agree that the word means “hidden” or “obscure.” Hence, the time of olam is indefinite (obscure, hidden), rather than never-ending time, eternity, or everlasting. It is indefinite, because an age can be anywhere from a lifetime to thousands of years in length.
To the Age and Beyond
Rotherham’s The Emphasized Bible renders Psalm 45:6,
6 Thy throne, O God, is to times age-abiding and beyond [Heb. olam va’ad, “to the age and beyond”], a sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom.
The King James Version incorrectly translates it “for ever and ever,” which makes no sense at all. God’s throne will indeed be for ever, but does it require two “evers” to describe never-ending time? The Psalmist did NOT say, olam va’olam.
Psalm 45:6 shows that olam by itself was insufficient to express eternity. The Psalmist had to add the phrase va’ad, “and beyond,” to show that God’s throne extends beyond the olam of the Messianic Age. Young’s Concordance tells us that the Hebrew word ad means “duration, continuity,” and for this reason Dr. Young believed that this term really did describe eternity.
The Bible uses this same Hebrew phrase, olam va’ad, in the Exodus 15:18, which Young’s Literal Translation renders:
Exodus 15:18
18 Jehovah reigneth—to the age and for ever! (olam va’ad)
Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate in the latter part of the fourth century, rendered the phrase olam va’ad to Latin as: in aeternum et ultra, or “into eternity and beyond.” This would be very strange if one insists that aeternum meant endless time. Jerome lived at the same time as Augustine and was well qualified to do a Latin translation of the Bible. In fact, the Latin Vulgate was the standard Bible used in the Church for the next thousand years. It is obvious that Jerome did not think that aeternum had to mean endless time, in spite of what Augustine believed.
Psalm 10:16 (Young’s Literal Translation)
16 Jehovah is king to the age, and for ever (olam va’ad), the nations have perished out of His land!
Daniel 12:2, 3 (Note the contrast between olam and olam va’ad.)
2 And the multitude of those sleeping in the dust of the ground do awake, some to life age-during [olam], and some to reproaches—to abhorrence age-during [olam]. 3 And those teaching do shine as the brightness of the expanse, and those justifying the multitude as stars to the age and for ever [olam va’ad].
In these verses we see that Jehovah, or Yahweh, will reign not only to the age, but beyond the age as well. Hence, this could express the idea of eternity. Daniel speaks of the resurrection, where some will be raised to life during the age, and others to judgment during the age. Then he takes it further, telling us that “those teaching” and “justifying the multitude” will shine to the age and beyond. His specific terminology sheds light on the meaning of these terms.
Dr. Young’s translation is not without certain problems, however. There are times when olam va’ad ought not to be translated “to the age and for ever” but left as “to the age and beyond.” This is because there is more than one future age, and sometimes “the age” is a reference to the first age. “And beyond” (va’ad) can also be a reference to the following age, rather than “for ever.” For example, Psalm 9:5 says in Young’s Literal,
5 Thou hast rebuked nations, Thou hast destroyed the wicked, their name Thou hast blotted out to the age and for ever [olam va’ad].
In this case “for ever” is not a valid translation. The wicked will not be destroyed for ever. God will rebuke the nations and blot out their name during the Messianic Age (when Christ and His overcomers will rule) and also in the age beyond (during the time of the lake of fire). So this verse does not prove that the wicked will be destroyed for all time. There will still be a Jubilee that will restore all nations to Him, as Psalm 86:9 says,
9 All nations that Thou hast made come and bow themselves before Thee, O Lord, and give honour to Thy name.
Psalm 67:1- 3 says in Young’s Literal,
3 Praise Thee do peoples, O God, praise Thee do peoples, all of them. 4 Rejoice and sing do nations, for Thou judgest peoples uprightly, and peoples on earth comfortest. Selah. 5 Confess Thee do peoples, O God, confess Thee do peoples—all of them. 6 Earth hath given her increase, God doth bless us—our God, 7 God doth bless us, and all ends of the earth fear Him!
The psalmist realizes that all the nations will rejoice in the judgments of God, because His judgments are corrective and remedial, not destructive. The only thing that is destroyed is the fleshly corruption and the injustice of man’s governmental systems that have prevailed in the present age. Psalm 72:11 says,
11 And all kings do bow themselves to him, all nations do serve him.
Psalm 82:8 also says that God will “inherit all nations.” How can God inherit all nations if He has destroyed them? And so we can only conclude that God does not intend to destroy the people of all nations who are currently unbelievers. God intends to inherit them. Isaiah 2:2-4 tells us that during that Age the people who did not know God will come to learn of Him,
2 Now it will come about that in the last days the mountain [Kingdom] of the house of the Lord will be established as the chief of the mountains, and will be raised above the hills [smaller kingdoms]; and all the nations will stream to it. 3 And many peoples will come and say, Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways, and that we may walk in His paths. For the law will go forth from Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 And He will judge between the nations, and will render decisions for many peoples; and they will hammer their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not lift up sword against nation, and never again will they learn war.
The old forms of government will be abolished “for ever,” and Christ will be the Head of a true United Nations to render decisions that will resolve all disputes without resorting to war. The individual people themselves will rejoice as they come into the glorious liberty of the sons of God.
The Jubilee Limits Liability for Debt
The bottom line is that the law of Jubilee mandates by law a limit on liability for all debt—and sin, in the Bible, is reckoned as a debt. The Lord’s prayer says in Matthew 6:12 says,
12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
In Luke 11:4 it is rendered this way:
4 And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us.
Luke’s account specifically equates sins with debts. The same is true in a number of Jesus’ parables, such as the one found in Matthew 18 about the debtor who owed ten thousand talents. A “talent” of gold in those days weighed 131 pounds, or 2096 ounces of gold per “talent.” Ten thousand talents would equal 20,960,000 ounces of gold. At the price of $400 per ounce, this today would represent (literally) a debt of $8,384,000,000.
In the parable, the debtor was forgiven his huge, unpayable debt. But he, in turn, refused to forgive the small debt that his neighbor owed him. So his huge debt was put back upon him. The final verse of the parable is Matthew 18:35,
35 So shall My heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother from your heart.
This does not mean that believers can lose their salvation and go to hell. It means that believers may lose the blessing of the first resurrection and will be “saved, yet so as through fire” at the general resurrection of the dead. Forgiveness is the primary requirement to be an overcomer, because forgiveness is the way in which we live and breathe the principles of the Jubilee.
In view of the law of Jubilee, where all debts are cancelled, it is not difficult to see that the time of aionios kolasis (eonian judgment) must of necessity be limited. To make it never-ending would be a violation of biblical law, regardless of our view of its actual nature. That is to say, whether we believe the fire is literal or symbolic of the divine law, it must be of limited duration.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Sanguinetti
Chapter 4 of Stephen Jones' book, "The Judgements of the Divine Law"
Chapter 4
The Lake of Fire
The lake of fire is described in Revelation 20 as the final judgment of God upon sinners when they are “judged according to their works.” The scene is also described in Daniel 7, where the prophet saw it as a “river of fire” in verse 10. Daniel saw the legal process as judgment flowed from the fiery throne to the people. John saw the process completed, as the river turned into a lake. Yet both seemed awestruck by the throne.
There are two primary questions that must be resolved in studying the lake or river of fire. First, what is the nature of this fire? Is it literal or symbolic? Secondly, what is the duration of this fiery judgment? Will it last for all time, or will this period of judgment come to an end?
Judgment According to Daniel’s Vision
In Daniel 7:9, 10 the prophet was shown a vision of the final judgment. This came in the context of his vision regarding the judgment upon the succession of beast empires that God had given to rule the world for a season. The Kingdom of God, represented by the throne of David in Jerusalem, had ended as a national entity in 586 B.C. when King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon destroyed Jerusalem.
While a captive in Babylon, Daniel had a series of visions and revelations that foretold a lengthy captivity by a series of empires, one after the other. The Babylonian phase of that captivity, depicted in Daniel 7:4 as a winged lion, was only the first seventy years of a much longer captivity. After Babylon rose Medo-Persia, depicted as a bear. The next dominant beast empire, Greece (Macedonia) was depicted as a swift leopard. Rome came next, depicted as an indescribable beast with large iron teeth.
In Daniel 7:8 out of this iron-toothed beast then came “horns” (that is, powers) and a “little horn” boasting of great things. (Rev. 13:5 interprets this as “blasphemies.”) From history it is not difficult to see this as the Roman Catholic Church, which derived power from Rome but came after the fall of Imperial Rome. It is after this “little horn” ends its dominance that the judgment of God comes upon these beast empires. With that context in mind, let us read about the Ancient of Days and His fiery throne:
9 I kept looking until thrones were set up, and the Ancient of Days took His seat; His vesture was like white snow, and the hair of His head like pure wool . . . .
The description of the One taking His seat upon the throne is similar to what John saw in Revelation 1:14,
14 And His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire.
Since God is spirit (John 4:24) and can manifest to us in whatever form He wishes, we must ask why He chose to manifest Himself in such a manner to Daniel and John. Why should He be called “the Ancient of Days” and portray Himself with white hair? Keep in mind that this is a court scene, where the dead are being raised to stand before God at the bar of justice. Part of the answer is to be found in the law in Leviticus 19:32,
32 You shall RISE UP before the grayheaded, and honor the aged, and you shall revere your God; I am the Lord.
The law is not merely a command to stand up before an elder in authority. It is also prophetic of what will happen when the Ancient of Days comes to be seated upon His throne. The dead will “rise up” and stand before Him. Therefore, He is pictured as having white hair. It is part of the prophecy of the resurrection of the dead. We continue now with the description of the throne in Daniel 7:9, 10,
9 . . . His throne was ablaze with flames, its wheels were a burning fire. 10 A river of fire was flowing and coming out from before Him; thousands upon thousands were attending Him, and myriads upon myriads were standing before Him; the court sat, and the books were opened.
The source of the fire is shown to be the throne itself. Thrones symbolize authority and law, or more specifically, the administration of the law by one in authority. To be seated upon a throne signified that the king was issuing decrees or judgments in an official capacity according to the laws of the nation. In America, where we have no king, we have a separate judicial system, and the judges sit “at the bench.” When the judge enters the court room, the people “all rise.” The “bench” indicates that the judge will now judge matters according to the law of the land.
Compare Daniel’s vision to that seen by John in Revelation 20:11, 12,
11 And I saw a great white throne and him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.
It is plain that Daniel and John both saw the same final judgment of sinners before the great white throne. Because the dead are judged “according to their deeds,” it is plain that they are being judged by the law, which is the divine standard of right and wrong. The divine law measures the deeds of all men to see what is a sin and what is righteous. Paul says in Romans 3:20, “through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” And in Romans 7:7, “I would not have come to know sin except through the Law; for I would not have known about coveting if the Law had not said, You shall not covet.”
In other words, the divine law defines sin and is the standard by which all of men’s deeds are judged. As John says so simply in 1 John 3:4, “sin is lawlessness.”
The Fire is the Judgment of the Divine Law
In the case of the Great White Throne in Daniel and Revelation, God judges all men according to His own law. The “fire” that proceeds from the throne is the judgment of the divine law according to their works. A common view is that this “fire” is literal and that it will last forever on the grounds that the people will be immortal and fireproof, but will be able to experience pain. Others say that the fire is literal, but that it will simply “burn up” (annihilate) the sinners. In both of these views, God metes out punishment, but justice itself is not done.
Our view is taken from the divine law itself, for this is how God defines justice. Nowhere does one find in the divine law a provision for burning anyone alive for ANY sin. The only use of fire found in the law is where a dead body might be burned (cremated) for the purpose of preventing an honorable burial. Leviticus 21:9 says that the daughter of a priest who becomes a harlot was to be burned with fire. The same judgment was to be administered to a man who married a woman and her daughter (Lev. 20:14).
Such judgments have been interpreted in the Middle Ages to justify burning people alive. But the justice in the divine law would not have anyone burned alive. They were executed first, often by stoning, and then their bodies were burned. We see this in the example of Achan, whose greed caused 36 Israelites to be killed in the battle of Ai. Joshua 7:25 says,
25 And Joshua said, Why have you troubled us? The Lord will trouble you this day. And all Israel stoned them with stones; and they burned them with fire after they had stoned them with stones.
This is what we call today “case history,” showing us how the law was actually implemented. The value of case law is that it shows us how we ought to interpret the law. This is the only case we are given in the Scriptures where the divine law was properly administered. Babylon, of course, had a fiery furnace, and this was used against Daniel’s three friends in Daniel 3:11. But Nebuchadnezzar did not follow biblical law, but rather the law of Babylon.
There are some who have argued that the burnt offerings in the law are types of “hell” as a payment for sin. However, no priest ever set fire to a burnt offering before actually killing the animal. Furthermore, Jesus Christ was the fulfillment of all of these burnt offerings and sacrifices of all kinds. Jesus was not burned at the stake, but crucified for our sins. Nor did Jesus have to enter a burning hell in Hades to pay for our sins.
One specific burnt offering in the law is found in Numbers 19. The law of the red heifer speaks of the manner in which men were to be cleansed from touching a dead body. This typically prophesies of the manner in which we are cleansed from mortality (our own dead body). A red heifer was to be killed outside the camp by the high priest (19:3). Its blood was to be sprinkled seven times before the sanctuary (19:4). Then the dead body of the heifer was to be burned totally, as in a burnt offering (19:5).
Jesus fulfilled the law of the red heifer and was, in fact, crucified “outside the camp” (Heb. 13:12) next to the place where its ashes were kept at the top of the Mount of Olives. He bled from seven places: two hands, two feet, head, back, and side. But the crucifixion itself fulfilled the burnt offering by fire. Jesus did not have to be burned at the stake to fulfill the law of the red heifer. The fire was not literal, but represented the divine law. And when we apply the death of Christ to our hearts, even as the ashes were sprinkled upon the unclean, the life of Christ also is imputed to us (Rom. 6:3-11).
To burn people alive as a judgment for sin was also practiced by the pagans in and around Canaan who worshipped Molech and Baal. These pagans believed that burning their children would atone for their own sins and satisfy God’s justice. Israel and Judah often adopted these same doctrines, and the prophets condemned them for it. God told the prophet about this practice in Jeremiah 19:5,
5 and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, a thing which I never commanded or spoke of, nor did it ever enter My mind.
Some no doubt will argue that the only thing wrong with such a judgment was the fact that they were executing innocent children in this manner. Certainly, it was a travesty of justice to sacrifice innocent children for the sins of another, for only the Son of God could lawfully sacrifice Himself for the sin of others. But even Jesus Himself did not have to be burned with fire to pay for the sin of mankind—because that was not the penalty for sin. If the divine law had demanded “hell-fire” to pay for any sin, then Jesus would have had to be burned in hell when He went to Hades.
Moreover, if the judgment for sin were unending torture in fire, then a mere three days in Hades would been insufficient to pay for the sin of the world, and we would yet be in our sins and without hope of salvation.
Judgment upon the Great Harlot of Revelation
The only other possible example of “case history” in the Scriptures is where the great prophetic harlot of Revelation 17 and 18 is burned with fire in the judgment. In Rev. 17:5 she is identified as a prophetic “Babylon,” and thus John applies prophecies of the old city of Babylon to this prophetic Babylon. In her judgment we see more than one aspect of biblical law. Revelation 18:6 says,
6 Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.
This sentence is according to the law found in Exodus 22:4, which says,
4 If what he stole is actually found alive in his possession, whether an ox or a donkey or a sheep, he shall pay double.
God gave His people (sheep) into the hands of Babylon for just seventy years (Jer. 25:11), and so Babylon was divinely authorized to take possession of Judah and Jerusalem during that time. The prophet says in Jeremiah 50:6, 7,
6 My people have become lost sheep. . . 7 All who came upon them have devoured them; and their adversaries have said, We are not guilty, inasmuch as they have sinned against the Lord who is the habitation of righteousness, even the Lord the hope of their fathers.
God did indeed sell Judah into the hands of Babylon, but more specifically, God sold Judah’s LABOR to Babylon for seventy years. Judah’s land was also sold to Babylon, but the law says that God owns all the land, and so the land cannot be sold for ever (Lev. 25:23; Jer. 27:5). The terms of the Divine Court limited their authority over Judah for seventy years, during which time they could treat the Judahites as they would any other sheep. If Babylon had agreed to release them after that time was completed, they could have avoided God’s judgment. However, we read in Jeremiah 50:33, 34,
33 Thus says the Lord of hosts, The sons of Israel are oppressed, and the sons of Judah as well; and all who took them captive have held them fast; they have refused to let them go. 34 Their Redeemer is strong, the Lord of hosts is His name; He will vigorously plead their case, so that He may bring rest to the earth, but turmoil to the inhabitants of Babylon.
Because Babylon refused to release God’s sheep at the end of their sentence, God enforced the lawful mandate, using the Medo-Persian armies.
So also is it with the prophetic Babylon of Revelation 17, 18. They, too, have refused to release God’s sheep after seventy years. “Mystery (secret) Babylon” became a secret empire in 1913-14 with the passage of the Federal Reserve Act. This occurred precisely 2,520 years after the original city of Babylonian Empire had been established in 607 B.C. This prophetic time cycle is “seven times” of prophecy (7 x 360 years). Mystery Babylon has ruled supreme since the bill was passed in 1913 and when President Wilson signed the bill into law in 1914 without even reading it. We and the whole world have repeated the Babylonian captivity in our the past century, for once again God sold all nations into their hands.
But when their appointed time came to an end, beginning in 1983-84, they refused to release us once again. For this reason, God has begun to undermine this great economic and religious empire and will shortly bring it to an end.
The judgment that Babylon must restore double what it has stolen shows that the Babylonian system, both ancient and modern, is a system of legalized theft. While this might have been lawful during the time that God had sold His people into their hands for their sin, it suddenly became unlawful when our divinely-mandated captivity ended.
God’s plan allowed Babylon to retain control for a season beyond their allotted time in order that He might have legal cause against Babylon, for it was in His plan to strip Babylon of the wealth that it obtained from its captives. If the Babylonian world system had released the people, its wealthy money barons could have kept their wealth. But in their pride, they thought that they could continue reaping indefinitely the benefits of God’s judgment upon His people. They were wrong, of course. But it is not within our scope to pursue that topic further. We have written this much to establish that the divine law is the basis of Babylon’s judgment.
The other main judgment against Babylon is more relevant to our study of the use of fire in God’s law. It is found in Revelation 18:8,
8 For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.
This judgment shows that the harlot of Babylon is in some way the daughter of a biblical priest, for that is how the divine law reads in Leviticus 21:9. This identifies the great harlot of Babylon to be (at least in part) a false bride of Christ and a system of priesthood as well. Perhaps that is why verse 16 describes this harlot as “she who was clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls.” The Levitical priests were to be dressed this way, as we read in Exodus 28:4-6,
4 And these are the garments which they shall make . . . 5 And they shall take the gold and the blue and the purple and the scarlet material and the fine linen. 6 They shall also make the ephod of gold, of blue and purple and scarlet material and fine twisted linen, the work of the skillful workmen.
The precious stones, of course, were part of the ephod that the high priest wore as a breastplate. On this breastplate were twelve precious stones listed in Exodus 28:15-20, and these are said in verse 21 to represent the twelve tribes of Israel.
Yet there are no pearls in the garment of the high priest. Why would John mention pearls in his description of the great harlot? It is because pearls have a similar symbolic meaning as the precious stones. In Revelation 21:19-21 the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem are the precious stones, while the GATES of the city are twelve pearls. On these gates are written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel (Rev. 21:12). Thus we see that the precious stones and the pearls both represent the twelve tribes of Israel.
In Isaiah 60:18 we read, “. . . you will call your walls salvation, and your gates praise.” On page 67 of The Struggle for the Birthright, we wrote about this:
“Isaiah 60:18, quoted earlier, tells us that the gates are ‘praise.’ This is a play on words, because Judah means ‘praise.’ Judah was to be the leading tribe of Israel. And so in this case Judah represents all the tribes, for in that day the King of Judah—Jesus Christ—will rule over all the tribes in one nation, as well as over the entire earth.”
Even though pearls were not used in the garments of the high priest, we do see pearls in the book of Revelation. Their use, then, on the garments of the great harlot are part of her identifying marks. Even as the precious stones on the ephod of the high priest identified him as a priest of the twelve tribes of Israel, so also do the pearls on the garment of the great harlot identify her as the daughter of a priest of Israel. All of this goes to show the judgment of the great harlot to be in accordance with divine law.
The final judgment factor relevant to us here is found in Revelation 18:21,
21 And a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, Thus will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer.
The question here is if the millstone represents Babylon itself being cast into the sea, or if this is a picture of the stoning (execution) of the great harlot prior to her being burned with fire. The text could be understood either way. But we do know that the great whore is found sitting upon many waters (Rev. 17:1). It would be no stretch to see that the millstone was being cast into the sea, because that is where she was sitting while being stoned in judgment. If so, then this great millstone would seem to sink her throne beneath the waves of the sea.
The Biblical Use of Fire as a Symbol of Judgment
Getting back to the judgment of the Ancient of Days in Daniel 7, we see that the fire comes from the throne, which is a universal symbol of law and authority to judge the people. Deuteronomy 33:2, 3 (KJV) says,
2 And he said, The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto Paran, and He came with ten thousands of saints; from His right hand went a fiery law [Heb. esh dath] for them, 3 Yea, He loved the people; all His saints are in Thy hand; and they sat down at Thy feet; every one shall receive of Thy words.
Note that it is not merely the law, but a “fiery law.” Esh is the Hebrew word for fire, and dath means decree, command, or law. Take special note also that this law is said to come from His right hand—and then it says that “all His saints are in His hand.” As we will show later, His saints are the ones called to administer the law, because they are the ones in whose hearts the divine law is written. That is why both the law and His saints are identified as being in the hand of God. But for now it is enough to see that the law itself is characterized as FIRE.
When God appeared on Mount Sinai to give the people the divine law, He was also visible only as FIRE. Deuteronomy 4:36 says,
36 Out of the heavens He let you hear His voice to discipline you; and on earth He let you see His great fire, and you heard His words from the midst of the fire.
In other words, the law was spoken and went forth from the midst of the fire on the mount. This is the meaning of the fire going forth from the throne of God as a river of fire upon the people. David used this same terminology in Psalm 18:7, 8, referring to the day at Mount Sinai when God gave the law to the people:
7 Then the earth shook and quaked; and the foundations of the mountains were trembling and were shaken, because He was angry. 8 Smoke went up out of His nostrils, and fire from His mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it.
How does fire come from God’s mouth? Is it not by means of His Words? These passages were not meant to portray a literal fire in Moses’ day, nor in Daniel’s day, nor in John’s day. The prophet tells us in Jeremiah 23:29,
29 Is not My word like fire? declares the Lord, and like a hammer which shatters a rock?
One can, of course, find many biblical passages where the “fire” is to be taken literally. This is especially the case when the text deals with judgment and destruction of literal cities or nations on earth. But the literalness of the fire in these biblical passages do not carry over into the final judgment at the Great White Throne. There are two kinds of fire: earthly and divine. The earthly type of fire burns the flesh-body. The divine fire burns “the flesh” in our souls, as it purifies us by means of discipline.
The Hebrew word for fire is esh. It is spelled with two Hebrew letters, aleph and shin. The aleph literally means an ox and is a symbol of strength. The shin literally means teeth and indicates the idea of devouring or consuming. Thus, the Hebrew word for fire literally means “the strong devourer” or “the strong consumer.” Moses uses a play on words to describe God’s appearance in the mount in the form of fire, saying in Deuteronomy 4:24,
24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
The Israelites thought that God’s fire would burn and consume their literal flesh, and so they refused to obey Moses when he told them to draw near to God (Exodus 20:18-21). Forty years later, Moses reminded them of that day where they said in Deuteronomy 5:25,
25 Now then why should we die? For this great fire will consume us; if we hear the voice of the Lord our God any longer, then we shall die.
They did not understand the difference between literal fire and the character of God. They did not see that a literal fire burns the bodily flesh, but the all-consuming fire of God only destroys “the flesh” that we ought to submit to Him for destruction anyway. Are they not like so many Christians today, who still do not know the difference? We think the fire of God is for the purpose of destroying US, when in fact, its purpose is to destroy our “flesh,” by way of divine discipline.
Isaiah 26:9 says,
9 At night my soul longs for Thee, indeed, my spirit within me seeks Thee diligently; for when the earth experiences Thy judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.
The purpose of God’s judgment is to teach the world righteousness, not to burn them to ashes. The fire motif is to show us that even as earthly fire burns literal flesh to ashes, so also does the divine fire burn “the flesh” to ashes. We understand spiritual things by their earthly counterparts. But we should not confound the two.
This leads us to our next question: how long is the judgment of God? Will God judge sinners endlessly with no hope of a Jubilee that would ultimately bring forgiveness of their debt to sin? If the purpose of the law is really to burn “the flesh,” then it is designed to correct men and teach them righteousness, not to destroy them or torture them for eternity.
Judgment and Punishment
Man punishes; God judges. In our Roman law system, the primary concern is not justice, but deterrence, which they try to accomplish by mandating longer and harsher sentences for crime. Two centuries ago in England it had progressed so far that men were being hanged for stealing a loaf of bread. Punishment is man’s way of resolving the crime (sin) problem; justice is secondary. But in God’s law the priorities are reversed: justice is primary, and deterrence is secondary.
When men punish according to the traditions of men, sinners are either punished too much or too little. God does not over-discipline anyone. The judgment always fits the crime. If a man steals $1000, he must restore precisely double to his victim. Not a penny more without the consent of the sinner; not a penny less without the consent of the victim. Divine justice may not align with man’s standard of right and wrong, but I myself will always defend the Word of God wherever the two disagree.
Burning people alive in hell is not justice—it is punishment. True justice is never fully accomplished until all the victims of injustice have been recompensed and the sinner restored to grace. This cannot happen in man’s prison system, nor could it happen by torturing sinners forever, nor could it even happen by annihilating all sinners in fire. All of these alternative methods represent punishment, not divine justice.
Only the justice of the divine law found in the Bible is true justice. Its purpose is not only to repay all victims for their injuries, but is also designed to work toward the sinner’s forgiveness and restoration to the congregation (Church).
It is true, of course, that the law is weak in some ways. Paul says in Romans 8:3 that the law is “weak through the flesh.” That is, if a man committed murder, the law cannot restore the victim back to life, and so restoration is not possible because of fleshly weakness. If a married woman is raped, the sinner does not have the power to un-rape her. Because of human, fleshly weakness, then, the law is weak. This is why in such cases, the sinner was put to death. Whenever the crime was such that there was no possible way to restore the lawful order, the sinner was to be put to death.
Putting the sinner to death was only partial justice, for no man can give two lives for the one stolen. In fact, the law says that double restitution was mandated for sheep that were found ALIVE in the thief’s hand. If the sheep had been killed, the thief owed four sheep for a sheep and five oxen for an ox (Exodus 22:1). Since no man can give more than his own life, it is apparent that the death penalty was not the full penalty that could satisfy the law.
Neither does the death penalty do anything to compensate or restore the victims of injustice. The relatives of the murdered man still grieve. The raped woman remains emotionally scarred. The death penalty is not justice—it was the law’s way of deferring judgment to the Great White Throne, where justice could be completed, where there was no longer any fleshly limitation in the law’s power to restore the losses incurred by the victims.
At the Great White Throne, God Himself, who has the power to raise the dead and heal the broken-hearted, has the power to make all things right. When the fiery law is administered to the sinners, the murderer may owe his victim, say, fifty years of life, during which time he might be sentenced to serve his victim. All sin is reckoned as a debt, and therefore all sinners are the debtors of their victims. That is divine justice. I am not wise enough to know how God will judge every case, but I have confidence that He has the capability and the will to make all things right.
We should also say here that if a murderer places his faith in Jesus Christ, then His crucifixion (death) will satisfy the law at the Great White Throne Judgment.
Law and Forgiveness
The function of the law is not to forgive sin, but to do justice by enforcing various penalties, depending upon the infraction. Forgiveness is something that only victims can do. Neither the law nor the judge has the authority to forgive sin (crime). If a man steals $1,000, the law says he must repay his victim double, or $2,000. The judge cannot reduce the sentence without violating the rights of the victim, nor can he increase it without violating the rights of the law-breaker. But the victim may reduce or cancel the debt as he wishes, for he alone has the power of grace to forgive what is owed him.
At the same time, the law mandates forgiveness once the law-breaker has obtained grace. That is, once his debt has been paid, he is under grace, and no one has the right to hold his former sin against him. Leviticus 19:17, 18 says,
17 You shall not hate your fellow countryman in your heart; you may surely reprove your neighbor, but shall not incur sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
In other words, no one has the right to exact more of the law-breaker than the law allows. When the debt is fully paid, forgiveness is mandatory. Loving your neighbor means that one cannot treat anyone as an ex-convict. He is a forgiven sinner under grace.
The Laws of Redemption
Another provision in the law by which such debts can be paid is found in the laws of redemption. In such cases a near kinsman may act as the debtor’s redeemer, paying the debt on his behalf (Leviticus 25:47-49). The redeemer, in essence, purchases the debt note of the debtor. The debt is transferred to the redeemer, and the redeemed debtor now must work for the redeemer until the debt is paid (Lev. 25:53).
Jesus came to earth as a near-kinsman (Heb. 2:11) in order to have the lawful right of redemption. He purchased our debt note, for Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:23 that “you were bought with a price.” Paul also says of redeemed people in Romans 6:22, “But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.” In other words, the debtor-sinner has been freed from the old taskmaster (sin) in order to serve his Redeemer. The Redeemer teaches him how to be law-abiding rather than lawless and how to be led by the Spirit for his sanctification.
Jesus did not redeem us to give us the right to continue serving sin. In other words, He did not purchase for us the right to be disobedient to His law. He purchased us in order that we might serve Him and learn righteousness, “resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.”
During that final age of judgment upon the sinners, the believers will inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5). These believers are the Body of Christ. They are the sons of God, who manifest Christ fully in His character and in His works. As such, they will receive a sacred responsibility of doing what He did. At the Great White Throne, the Judge of all the earth will sentence all unbelieving sinners by imposing upon them the debt incurred for every sin they ever committed. All sinners will be held fully accountable according to their deeds, as Revelation 20:12 and 13 clearly tell us.
However, the law also mandates that there must always be provision for redemption of the land or any portion of it. Leviticus 25:23, 24 says,
23 The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are but aliens and sojourners with Me. 24 Thus for every piece of your property, you are to provide for the redemption of the land.
All men are made of the dust of the ground, beginning with Adam (Gen. 2:7). God owns all the land, including us, by right of creation. And so, the law above applies to all mankind. There must always be a provision for redemption of the land. God’s only justification for this law is on the grounds that He owns all the land and therefore has the right to set the terms of men’s inheriting His land.
Since God will judge the whole earth according to His law, this provision is very important. It gives us the basic outline of what life will be like during that final age of judgment. Redeemers will purchase their debt note and thereby receive authority over the sinners. This sheds light on Jesus’ parable in Luke 19, where He spoke of the righteous receiving authority over ten cities, or five, or even just one city. Who will they rule? What will be the basis of their authority?
The answer is in the law, which prophesies that which shall be. The righteous will be given authority over debtors to the law—those who did not avail themselves of Jesus’ provision to pay their debt. The sinners will be placed as servants of the sons of God.
The sons of God will receive authority, but also the responsibility to teach them righteousness. As we saw earlier in Romans 6:22 in Paul’s application of the laws of redemption, the purpose of redemption was “sanctification and the outcome, eternal life.” Thus, each believer who inherits the earth will act as a redeemer (under Christ, of course) and be given authority over a certain number of judged sinners. These will serve out their sentences as “slaves of righteousness.”
The believers’ responsibility will be to teach the sinners the love of God and His ways. Isaiah 26:9, quoted earlier, says, “When the earth experiences Thy judgments, the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.” How will they learn? The believers will teach them through discipline when necessary, but always in love. In many ways it will be like parents training children by combining love with discipline.
These debtors, the law says, must serve their redeemers until their debt is paid, or until the Jubilee. In past times when the Law of God was enforced in the land of Israel, the sinner was held accountable for what he did overtly. The sinner was then restored to grace insofar as the nation was concerned, but such judgment did not address the underlying heart problem that all men received from Adam. Thus, the judgment was limited in its scope, and so also the grace and forgiveness that the sinner received.
But in that final age of judgment, God will address these deeper issues. The judgment must address not only the sins of the individual sinners, but also the debt of their fathers all the way back to Adam. Romans 5:12 tells us that because of Adam’s sin, death (mortality) passed into all men—which means that all men are paying for Adam’s sin and not merely their own sins. We are born mortal because of something Adam did. This is the deeper issue that puts us all in need of a Redeemer.
Those who did not take advantage of Jesus’ redemptive work on the Cross must yet find redeemers at the Great White Throne, for there is no way they will be able to pay the debt that they owe. Theoretically, perhaps, some good people might be able to pay their debt, especially if they died young without doing much wrong to their neighbors. Will such people be able to pay their debt to the law within a few years? Yes—however, they will also still be liable for the original sin of Adam, even as we see today. This debt is unpayable, and so they will have to serve their redeemers until that final Jubilee mandates the cancellation of all debt. Hence, the Jubilee law mandates in Leviticus 25:54,
54 Even if he is not redeemed by these means, he shall still go out in the year of Jubilee, he and his sons with him.
The unbelievers are still the children of the first Adam, who received this liability for sin that resulted in mortality. Only believers have become the children of the Last Adam, Jesus Christ. And so, all unbelievers will have to remain under the authority of the sons of God until the year of Jubilee. Then all creation—Adam and his sons with him—will be set free into the glorious liberty of the sons of God (Rom. 8:21).
The Jubilee
The Jubilee occurred every 49 years (Lev. 25:8-17). However, on this highest level, I believe that the Jubilee will occur at the end of 49,000 years of human history. (We are currently at the end of just 6,000 years and awaiting our first millennial Sabbath-rest.)
The Creation Jubilee will set all men free, for all debt to the law will be cancelled. Until that time arrives, however, they will have to remain under authority until the Jubilee. During that time, the saints in authority will teach them righteousness.
The Jubilee law was designed to limit all debt to the law for sin. Men’s traditions are thus not as merciful as God’s law. Men would have sinners punished harshly, and many Church traditions would have sinners pay their debt perpetually in fiery torture with no possible end. God’s law, on the other hand, includes mercy and forgiveness. All debt incurred by sin ends at the Jubilee.
The law of Jubilee applies to more serious crimes where a debt is so large that it cannot be paid. The same spirit of the law applies to lesser offences, for we read in Deuteronomy 25:1-3,
1 If there is a dispute between men and they go to court, and the judges decide their case, and they justify the righteous and condemn the wicked, 2 then it shall be if the wicked man deserves to be beaten, the judge shall then make him lie down and be beaten in his presence with the number of stripes according to his guilt. 3 He may beat him forty times but no more, lest he beat him with many more stripes than these, and your brother be degraded in your eyes.
Jesus referred to this law in Luke 12:42-49. There we are told that God’s faithful stewards will be made rulers over all His possessions (12:44). But the unjust servants who oppressed their fellow servants will be beaten according to their guilt. Those who sinned in ignorance will be beaten with few stripes; those who sinned with full knowledge of what they were doing will receive many stripes—that is, up to forty.
What is of interest to us here is that once the judgment has been administered, the sinner is to be set free—not burned in hell. In fact, Jesus concludes His parable by telling us that this judgment of the law is a FIRE. Verse 49 says,
49 I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled.
Let us not think that Jesus wished to bring people into the torture hell-fire as many understand it. His wish was to restore the earth by means of lawful judgments, but that time had not yet come.
Incidentally, in the passage in Luke 12 above, Jesus was not referring to unbelievers being judged in the lake of fire. He was referring to believers who will be “saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15). As we have shown in The Barley Overcomers as well as in The Laws of the Second Coming, there are two resurrections. The first is at the beginning of the thousand-year Sabbath millennium (Rev. 20:1-6) that is the time that the overcomers will receive immortality and eonian life (life in “The Age”). The general resurrection at the end of that thousand years will include all the dead who did not attain to that first resurrection. This second resurrection will include both believers and unbelievers, as Jesus taught us in John 5:28 and 29,
28 Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice, 29 and shall come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment.
Jesus was NOT describing the first resurrection, wherein we see a resurrection of only the few who will rule and reign with Christ during the thousand years (Rev. 20:6). He can only be referring to the second, general resurrection, which will empty Hades. In this resurrection, Jesus says, some will receive life (immortality), while others will receive judgment (the lake of fire). Paul affirms this in his testimony before Governor Felix in Acts 24:15.
Christian believers who are “saved yet so as through fire” will not be cast into the “lake of fire,” but they will be judged on some level according to the fiery law. Since it is the same law that will judge both the believers and the unbelievers, both are said to be a “fire.” But the believers will be judged by the “few stripes” or “many stripes,” and this is of short duration. God treats them as disobedient (lawless) children who need some discipline because they refused to be obedient to His law after Christ had redeemed them.
The unbelievers, however, will be judged for more serious crimes. Theirs is the “lake of fire,” which will only end at the Jubilee when all creation comes into the glorious liberty of the sons of God (Rom. 8:21).
The Discipline of God’s Children
The Bible clearly teaches that the purpose of the law’s judgments is first to obtain justice for the victims, and secondly to obtain forgiveness for the sinner. Too often this secondary purpose has been lost in men’s zeal for punishment. Psalm 130:3 and 4 says,
3 If Thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? 4 But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared [respected].
Those of us who have brought up children can understand David’s statement very well. Discipline is necessary in order to bring children to maturity and teach the difference between right and wrong. The law (rules of the household) is their schoolmaster to bring them to Christ. With each judgment, there must be forgiveness at the end of the time of discipline. Forgiveness after discipline is what causes a child to respect the parent. This is the healthy “fear” that David mentions.
Over-discipline will cause the child to develop an unhealthy kind of fear, and he will eventually lose respect for the parent.
God is bringing forth children in this world. That is why we are called “the sons of God.” That is also why God is said to be our Father. He is the perfect parent. He brings discipline to His children, because the undisciplined ones are illegitimate. Hebrews 12:6-11 says,
6 For those whom the Lord loves he disciplines; and He scourges every son whom He receives. 7 It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. 11 All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.
The problem is that men so often have an unhealthy fear of their heavenly Father, because they have been taught that He over-disciplines His children. In fact, many Roman Catholics have been taught as a matter of course that Jesus Christ is unapproachable and would burn us alive if we ever tried to get too close to Him. For that reason, they are taught to pray to Mary, imploring her to intercede for them. Mary is less threatening, but “everyone knows that a good son will listen to his mother.”
It is sad that men have been frightened away from Jesus. During His ministry on earth, men were attracted to him—even children—because of His great love and tenderness toward them. But the traditions of men have reversed this, and many now do not really know Him at all. As a parent myself, I know how it would feel if my own children thought I were so frightening.
In fact, it is usually the Church denominations that want to frighten people into submitting to their Church leaders. This is an unhealthy fear, but the leaders justify their behavior by claiming to be a reflection of Jesus Christ. Thus, if Jesus Christ is such a fearful God, then men ought to fear the Church which supposedly represents Him. But how often does the Church really reflect the character of Jesus Christ?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
def59
Hey Mark, could we get the Readers Digest version of these posts. Long posts are never read, so your points are lost in the gray.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Sanguinetti
I am not a speed reader either Def. I will offer a synopsis later on this subject matter. For now one can scan the chapters. They are rather interesting. Basically, the chapters say that if we are dealing with God's judgement of man we should go to God's law from the Old Testament as a precedent in determining how God will judge mankind at the Great White Throne judgement in the future.
One can not in truth say that God will judge mankind based on man's laws or traditions. What is instead needed is both a knowledge of the Old Testament law and biblical precedents for how it was applied. Your argument of eternal torment is descredited because torture was not part of the Old Testament Law. Instead for certain capital offenses we had death awaiting God's judgement at the end of the age. Since torture was not prescribed in dealing with offenses how can one say that eternal torment will be prescribed later? Even the lash as a means of corrective punishment was to be limited to 40 stripes.
Dr. Jones' articles are well written and based on actual biblical historical events in determining the prophetic future as taught in the book of Revelation and other biblical books. Other means of interpretation that don't take into consideration biblical history are merely guess work. Or as Ecclesiastes says there is nothing new under the sun and things in life are cyclical.
Edited by Mark SanguinettiLink to comment
Share on other sites
def59
Mark
Have you read the books referenced by Dr. Fairchild?
Hellfire is a difficult subject to understand, but the idea that God could not or would not inflict it upon rebellious sinners is ludicrous.
Sodom and Gomorrah, the occupation of the Promised Land are two evidences of God's wrath being shown on humans. Many of these people did not know better, yet they suffered.
How much more severely will those who do know and not believe be dealt with.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Sanguinetti
Hellfire, whereby one is tormented eternally for temporal sins has pagan roots and is not biblical. In fact, in the Old Testament God was disgusted when his people followed the pagan religion of their neighbors and sacrficed their children by fire. What you are advocating has roots in paganism and not the Old Testament law.
In the time of Lot when Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed those people's death was likely the equivalent of an atomic bomb being dropped on their heads. There death was likely very fast. They received the death penalty to await God's judgement as did those who died in the Flood. They were not tormented for days and days like you are advocating.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Raf
George Carlin
Link to comment
Share on other sites
def59
The paganism charge is a typical accusation coming from people who believe they have unlocked secrets from the Bible kept for 2,000 years. Check out some Christian history and see what the early believers really believed.
But S&G will be judged again. They will get a lighter sentence than anyone who misleads a child.
But did not God send his holy fire down from heaven to wipe out the altar erected for Baal?
When it is judgment, God uses fire often. Jesus said the fire is reserved for Satan and his angels.But people will go there too and it won't be pleasant. That's why I want others to come to know Jesus now, before they have to face that reality.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Sanguinetti
Def says,
From what I understand historically, the Greeks reading from the Greek New Testament were more inclined to side with a limitation to punishment and the reconciliation of all by God through Jesus Christ at the end of the ages. A few of the Roman Latins on the other hand, under the influence of Augustine who did not know Greek and instead got his theology from later Latin versions of the bible, believed in eternal torment for the sinners.
There seems to be three camps of belief on this. I used to believe in fire as a form of annihilation and that the unbelievers would be burned and then cease to exist in the lake of fire. This was the popular teaching in the Way denomination.
Def is in the camp of believing that the unbelievers will be tormented eternally for their temporal lifetime of sin. He likely has gotten this theology from his church or place of worship. On more than a few posts he seems very concerned with keeping the status quo of religiosity and once even chided me for not going along with the more popular traditional church doctrines. For many churches, unfortunately, this may include the threat of eternal torment as a motivation of keeping in check the masses while keeping church attendance high.
I have changed my previous beliefs on this subject and am now in the third camp of doctrinal views on this subject. I believe that God is not a failure and that through Jesus Christ he will restore and reconcile all men and women unto Himself through His Son Jesus Christ and not just a few people. I believe that God will use the Lake of Fire written about in chapter 20 of the book of Revelation as a form of purification for the ungodly and not as a means of annihilation or eternal torment. Since I am not a regular church goer my belief is based on an actual personal study of the scriptures and if you have followed this thread and read it in its entirety you would know that I have literally pages and pages and pages of scriptural material to back up my position. And I have pages and pages more which I have not yet posted.
Thank you Def for motivating me to share this material which I think is very important for the Christian church to gain a knowledge of. And now in answer to your question, from the book "The Judgments of the Divine Law" by Stephen Jones.
Chapter 6
What the Greek Church Fathers Believed
The early Church fathers did not concern themselves with in-depth theology, but focused upon the person of Christ, the work that He accomplished, and how He fulfilled biblical prophecy in the law and prophets. The terms that they used of the judgment to come was essentially the same as the writers of the New Testament. Because they seldom felt the need to define their terms specifically, there is no way to prove what they believed, except by their use of the term aionios. Nonetheless, in the second century we begin to see some evidence as to how they generally understood this fiery judgment.
Irenaeus of Lyons, Gaul (120-202 A.D.)
Irenaeus was the Church leader from Lyons, a city in southern Gaul, which is now France. He died in 202 with thousands of fellow Christians during the persecution of Roman Emperor Severus. He wrote five books called Against Heresies. (See The Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 1, edited by Roberts and Donaldson, 1994 reprint of the 1885 book.) He often writes of aionian judgment, and closes his monumental work with a commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:25 and 26, saying,
“For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For in the times of the kingdom, the righteous man who is upon the earth shall then forget to die. But when He saith, All things shall be subdued unto Him, it is manifest that He is excepted who did put all things under Him. And when all things shall be subdued unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subject unto Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.
“John, therefore, did distinctly foresee the first ‘resurrection of the just,’ and the inheritance in the kingdom of the earth; and what the prophets have prophesied concerning it harmonize [with his vision]. For the Lord also taught these things, when He promised that He would have the mixed cup new with His disciples in the kingdom. The apostle, too, has confessed that the creation shall be free from the bondage of corruption, [so as to pass] into the liberty of the sons of God. And in all these things, and by them all, the same God the Father is manifested, who fashioned man, and gave promise of the inheritance of the earth to the fathers, who brought it (the creature) forth [from bondage] at the resurrection of the just, and fulfills the promises for the kingdom of His Son. . . .”
Here we see that Irenaeus understood that the creation itself would ultimately be set free from corruption and pass into the liberty of the sons of God.
Again, in one of Irenaeus’ books that is now lost, we find another author quoting from it, giving us what is called a “fragment.” There are 55 fragments attributed to Irenaeus. Fragment number 39 reads,
“Christ, who was called the Son of God before the ages, was manifested in the fullness of time, in order that He might cleanse us through His blood, who were under the power of sin, presenting us as pure sons to His Father, if we yield ourselves obediently to the chastisement of the Spirit. And in the end of time He shall come to do away with all evil, and to reconcile all things, in order that there may be an end of all impurities.”
Here it is clear that Irenaeus believed in the reconciliation of all things at the end of time. So when Irenaeus speaks of aionios judgment of the wicked, we are inescapably drawn to the conclusion that he did not think the judgment would continue for all time.
Clement of Alexandria (150-213 A.D.)
Clement was born in Athens, Greece, and later moved to Alexandria, Egypt, where he became the head of the Church from 190-203. He fled for his life in 203 during the persecution of the Roman Emperor, Severus, and spent his remaining years teaching in Antioch and Palestine. In Stromata, VII, 26, Clement wrote,
“God does not wreak vengeance, for vengeance is to return evil for evil, and God punishes only with an eye to the good.”
Clement also comments on Paul’s statement in 1 Timothy 4:9-11, which says,
9 It is a trustworthy statement deserving full acceptance. 10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of the believers. 11 Prescribe and teach these things.
In his comment, Clement shows that he understood Paul to mean that there was a “general” salvation of all men, as well as a “particular” salvation and reward for believers. Stromata VII, 2:5-12 says,
“Wherefore also all men are His; some through knowledge, and others not yet so . . . For He is the Savior; not the Saviour of some, and of others not . . . Nor can He who is the Lord of All (and serves above all the will of the Good and Almighty Father) ever be hindered by another …And how is He Saviour and Lord, if not the Saviour and Lord of all? But He is the Saviour of those who have believed . . . and the Lord of those who have not believed, till, being enabled to confess Him, they obtain the peculiar and appropriate book which comes by Him. [Christ is] the First Administrator of the Universe, Who by the will of the Father directs the salvation of all . . . (the One only Almighty Good God—from the eon and for the eon saving by His Son) . . . for all things are arranged with a view to the salvation of the Universe by the Lord of the Universe, both generally and particularly . . . .”
Clement then speaks of the nature of the fiery judgment at the Great White Throne where unbelievers will be judged:
“But necessary corrections, through the goodness of the great Overseeing Judge, both by the attendant angels, and through various preliminary judgments, or through the Great and Final Judgment, compel egregious sinners to repent.”
It was Clement’s opinion that the judgment would “compel egregious sinners to repent.” I do not mean to quibble, but in this I differ slightly with Clement. Any time a sinner is compelled to repent, the change is only superficial. The judgment of the law can only constrain the sinner’s behavior and limit his actions to what is lawfully acceptable. Only the love of God will change the heart and cause the sinner to truly repent.
Clement wrote again about the nature of God’s fiery judgment in Stromata VII, 6,
“We say that the fire purifies not the flesh but sinful souls, not an all-devouring vulgar fire, but the ‘wise fire’ as we call it, the fire that ‘pierceth the soul’ which passes through it.”
Clement writes in Ecl. Proph., XXV, 4, that the fire is “wise,”
“Fire is conceived of as a beneficent and strong power, destroying what is base, preserving what is good; therefore this fire is called ‘wise’ by the Prophets.”
Clement writes in The Instructor, I, 8, that the purpose of fire is to restore sinners,
“Punishment is, in its operation, like medicine; it dissolves the hard heart, purges away the filth of uncleanness, and reduces the swellings of pride and haughtiness; thus restoring its subject to a sound and healthful state.”
Again, he writes in Stromata VII, 3:17,
“. . . at any rate, even suffering is found to be useful alike in medicine and in education, and in punishment; and by means of it, characters are improved for the benefit of mankind.”
Finally, in Clement’s commentary on 1 John, he writes,
(On 1 John 1:5) “And in Him is no darkness at all,” that is, no passion, no keeping up of evil respecting anyone; He destroys no one, but gives salvation to all.”
(On 1 John 2:2) “ ‘And not only for our sins,’ that is, for those of the faithful, is the Lord the Propitiator does he say, ‘but also for the whole world.’ He, indeed, saves all; but some He saves converting them by punishments; others, however, who follow voluntarily He saves with dignity of honour; so that ‘every knee should bow to Him, of things in heaven, or things on earth, and things under the earth’—that is, angels and men.”
Clement clearly believed in the salvation of all men back to God. Some, he says, are reconciled voluntarily—and these are those who believe in Christ during the ages prior to the first resurrection. Others, he says, will be saved by means of “punishments.” I do not know what Greek word Clement was using, but I myself would use the word “judgment” rather than punishment in order to better manifest the purpose of the divine law (fire).
Origen of Alexandria (185-254 A.D.)
Origen was a student of Clement who became the head of the school in Alexandria after Clement was forced to flee. Origen is the most well-known of the early teachers of the restoration of all things. He wrote extensively and was the first to write a systematic theology of early Church belief. For this reason, the people today who oppose the teaching of restoration often call it “Origenism,” as if to imply that it was invented and believed almost exclusively by this one man and a few followers.
But such a view merely portrays either prejudice or ignorance, since Origen did not differ substantially from the teachings of Clement, his mentor, or Pantaenus before him. In Volume 6 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, page 3, in the introduction to the writings of Gregory Thaumaturgus, the editors tell us,
“Alexandria continues to be the head of Christian learning. . . We have already observed the continuity of the great Alexandrian school; how it arose, and how Pantaenus begat Clement, and Clement begat Origen. So Origen begat Gregory, and so the Lord has provided for the spiritual generation of the Church’s teachers, age after age, from the beginning. Truly, the Lord gave to Origen a holy seed, better than natural sons and daughters.”
Origen is more well known than Clement or Pantaenus, because he produced the first real systematic theology in the early Church, called First Principles. And so he later became the “lightning rod” of his opponents’ wrath. Hence, the doctrine of the restoration of all things has been mislabeled “Origenism,” as if to imply that he invented the teaching. Nothing could be further from the truth, as every good Church historian knows. To include all that Origen writes about the nature and duration of God’s fiery judgment would take a large book in itself, and so we will include a sampling of what he wrote. In his book Against Celsus, IV, 13, he writes,
“The Sacred Scripture does, indeed, call our God ‘a consuming fire’ [Heb. 12:29], and says that ‘rivers of fire go before His face’ [Dan. 7:10], and that ‘He shall come as a refiner’s fire and purify the people’ [Mal. 3:2-3]. As therefore, God is a consuming fire; what is it that is to be consumed by Him? We say it is wickedness, and whatever proceeds from it, such as is figuratively called ‘wood, hay, and stubble’ [1 Cor. 3:15]—which denote the evil works of man. Our God is a consuming fire in this sense; and He shall come as a refiner’s fire to purify rational nature from the alloy of wickedness and other impure matter which has adulterated the intellectual gold and silver; consuming whatever evil is admixed in all the soul.”
Origen, like most Christians in the second century, seems to have lost the knowledge of biblical law. Hence, he seems to think that the “fire” is painful to the sinner. This may simply be because Origen held what is called “the doctrine of reserve,” believing that certain truths ought to be held in secret. It may be, then, that he taught in public that the fiery judgment upon sinners was physically painful, though temporary, but in private he may have thought otherwise. That is a matter of debate. In speaking of the duration of the fiery judgment, Origen writes in his Commentary in Epistle to the Romans, VIII, 11,
“But how long this purification which is wrought out by penal fire shall endure, or for how many eons it shall torment sinners, He only knows to Whom all judgment is committed by the Father.”
Again, Origen writes in First Principles, I, 6:3,
“And so it happens that some in the first, others in the second, and others even in the last times, through their endurance of greater and more severe punishments of long duration, extending, if I may say so, over many eons, are by these very stern methods of correction renewed and restored . . . .”
This is an example of how Origen taught that the “penal fire” would “torment sinners” for “many eons.” Certainly, he did not understand the concept of the Jubilee and how it mandated a limitation of all debt, or liability for sin. In this way, I differ from Origen’s teaching, for I view the divine law as judgment, not punishment or torment. Nonetheless, we are in agreement that the goal of this fiery judgment is not to destroy sinners, but to restore them to God.
Novatian of Rome (circa 250 A.D.)
This great Presbyter of the Church in Rome also held the doctrine of the purifying nature of divine judgment. In De Regula Fidei, IV, he wrote that the. . .
“. . . wrath and indignation of the Lord, so-called, are not such passions as bear those names in man; but that they are operations of the Divine Mind directly solely to our purification.”
Didymus the Blind (308-395 A.D.)
Didymus also held to the concept of divine punishment, rather than what I would call judgment. He says in De. Span. San. II,
“For although the Judge at times inflicts tortures and anguish on those who merit them, yet he who more deeply scans the reason of things, perceiving the purpose of His goodness, who desires to amend the sinner, confesses Him to be good. He who is our Lord and Saviour inflicts on us everything that may lead us to Salvation; inflicting on us according to His mercy, yet doing this in His judgment.”
In his Commentary on 1 Peter, III, he writes,
“As mankind by being reclaimed from their sins are to be subjected to Christ in the dispensation appointed for the Salvation of all, so the angels will be reduced to obedience by the correction of their vices.”
Gregory of Nazianzen, Bishop of Constantinople (325-390 A.D.)
Gregory was educated in Alexandria and in Athens. Along with his friend, Basil, they compiled a collection of Origen’s writings called Philokalia, or Love of the Beautiful. He ultimately became the bishop of Constantinople and was known as one of the four Eastern Doctors of the Church. Robert Payne writes on page 179 of his book, The Fathers of the Eastern Church,
“Of all the Fathers of the Church, he was the only one to be granted after his death the title “Theologian,” which until this time was reserved for an apostle—John of Patmos.”
Gregory wrote this (Orat. XXXIX, 19) about the lake of fire:
“These (apostates), if they will, may go our way, which indeed is Christ’s; but if not, let them go their own way. In another place perhaps they shall be baptized with fire, that last baptism, which is not only very painful, but enduring also; which eats up, as it were hay, all defiled matter, and consumes all vanity and vice.”
Gregory, Bishop of Nyassa (335-395 A.D.)
This Gregory was the younger brother of Basil, the friend of Gregory of Nazianzen. He was the bishop of Nyassa, a town in Cappadocia. Robert Payne says of him in his book, The Fathers of the Eastern Church, page 168, 169,
“Of the three Cappadocian Fathers, Gregory of Nyassa is the one closest to us, the least proud, the most subtle, the one most committed to the magnificence of men. That strange, simple, happy, unhappy, intelligent, and God-tormented man was possessed by angels. . . In Eastern Christianity his Great Catechism follows immediately after Origen’s First Principles. These were the two seminal works, close-woven, astonishingly lucid, final . . . Athanasius was the hammer, Basil the stern commander, Gregory of Nazianzus the tormented singer, and it was left to Gregory of Nyassa to be the man enchanted with Christ . . . Four hundred years after his death, at the Seventh General Council held in A.D. 787, the assembled princes of the Church granted him a title which exceeded in their eyes all the other titles granted to men: he was called ‘Father of Fathers’.”
In Gregory’s Orat. in 1 Cor. 15:28, 32-44, where the Apostle Paul writes of all things being restored to God at the end of time, he writes,
“33. So I begin by asking what is the truth that the divine apostle intends to convey in this passage? It is this. In due course evil will pass over into non-existence; it will disappear utterly from the realm of existence. Divine and uncompounded goodness will encompass within itself every rational nature; no single being created by God will fail to achieve the kingdom of God. The evil that is now present in everything will be consumed like a base metal melted by the purifying flame. Then everything which derives from God will be as it was in the beginning before it had ever received an admixture of evil. . .
40. And this is the ultimate goal of our hope, that nothing should be left in opposition to the good, but that the divine life should permeate everything and abolish death from every being, the sin, from which as we have already said, death secured its hold over men, having already been destroyed. . . [Here he quotes from 1 Cor. 15:22-28 ending with “God will be all in all.”]
44. That last phrase, which speaks of God coming to be in all by becoming all to each, clearly portrays the non-existence of evil. Obviously, God will be ‘in all’ only when no trace of evil is to be found in anything. For God cannot be in what is evil. So either He will not be ‘in all’ and some evil will be left in things, or, if we are to believe that He is ‘in all,’ then that belief declares that there will be no evil. For God cannot be in what is evil.”
In Gregory’s Comm. on Psalm 54:17, he writes about divine judgment and its purpose to restore mankind, saying,
“The Lord will, in His just judgment, destroy the wickedness of sinners; not their nature . . . Wickedness being thus destroyed, and its imprint being left in none, we shall all be fashioned after Christ, and in all that one character shall shine, which was originally imprinted on our nature.”
In Gregory’s De Anima et Resurrectione, he comments on the second death, saying,
“They who live in the flesh ought, by virtuous conversation, to free themselves from fleshly lusts, lest after death, they should again need another death, to cleanse away the remains of fleshly vice that cling to them.”
We know, of course, from Revelation 20:14 that the second death is the lake of fire. It is obvious from this that Gregory believed that the second death—the lake of fire—was God’s manner of cleansing the sinners, not of destroying them. After all, Revelation 20 makes it clear that the lake of fire is for unbelievers, not believers, and so Gregory was speaking about the cleansing of unbelievers.
Victorinus (circa 360 A.D.)
In his book Adv. Arium I, 3, he writes that Christ will . . .
“. . . regenerate all things, as He created all things. By the life that is in Him all things will be cleansed and return into eonian life. Christ is to subject all things to Himself . . . when this shall have been accomplished, God will be in all things, because all things will be full of God.”
Jerome, Bishop of Bethlehem (340-419 A.D.)
It was in Jerome’s day (400 A.D.) that the belief in the salvation of all men came to be questioned officially. It arose in Alexandria as the by-product of a petty dispute over money. There arose in Alexandria an unscrupulous bishop named Theophilus who became offended when a rich widow gave money to one of his deacons (Isidorus) in order to use the money to buy clothing for poor women. (She knew that if she gave the money to Theophilus, he would use it on his building projects.) Theophilus flew into a rage and banished Isidorus.
In my book, Creation’s Jubilee, I wrote a summary of the story on page 115, saying,
“It happened that Isidorus was a great admirer of Origen. So to get even with Isidorus, Theophilus called together a synod of a few loyal bishops, condemned Origen as a heretic, and forbade anyone henceforth to read his works. When a group of 300 Nitrian monks refused to acquiesce in denouncing Origen, he then sent armed men to attack and kill them. Eighty of these monks, however, escaped, making their way to Constantinople, appealing to the bishop there, John Chrysostom, who, they knew, was a man of great integrity. John was horrified, and after hearing the case, he sided with the monks. However, Theophilus succeeded by outrageous accusations to depose John and send him into exile. He ultimately drove John to his death. These accusations were gleefully translated into Latin by Jerome, who, according to historian, Hans von Campenhausen, ‘lost all feeling of decency and veracity’ (The Father of the Latin Church, p. 178).”
Up until that time Jerome had written much about the restoration of all mankind. But during this controversy, he wrote to the bishop of Rome, asking him what position he should take. The bishop sided with Theophilus, so Jerome suddenly stopped teaching the salvation of all men. In one of his earlier writings, though, Jerome wrote (In Eph. 4:16),
“In the end of all things the whole body which has been dissipated will be restored . . . What I mean is, the fallen Angel will begin to be that which he was created, and man, who was expelled from Paradise, will once more be restored to the tilling of Paradise. These things will then take place universally.”
John Chrysostom (347-407 A.D.)
John was one of the most famous of the bishops of Constantinople in the late fourth century. He is the bishop to whom the surviving Nitrian monks appealed when attacked by the soldiers of Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria. His writings are not so clear as to make it certain of his belief concerning the salvation of all, but he does give some hints as to his belief in the purpose of judgment. In his Hom. IX in Epis. Ad Rom. 5:11, he writes,
“. . . if punishment were an evil to the sinner, God would not have added evils to the evil . . . all punishment is owing to His loving us, by pains to recover us and lead us to Him, and to deliver us from sin which is worse than hell.”
This same teaching can be found in his Hom. V, 2 de Statuis; and in Hom. III, 2 in Epis. Ad Philem. 1:25. The problem is that there are many places in his writings where he seems to teach endless punishment. We believe that this is because he held the doctrine of reserve, where some thought it better to threaten with greater punishments than they themselves actually believed God would inflict—in order to discourage people from turning away from God.
Titus, Bishop of Bostra (circa 364 A.D.)
This bishop wrote a book against the Manichean religion that had been started in the third century by a man named Mani. Manicheanism taught Persian Dualism, where time would end with the separation of light from darkness. That is, good and evil would continue to co-exist side by side. The Christian Church adopted parts of this view in teaching that the ultimate goal of history would be heaven and hell forever co-existing. Titus’ book, Against Manichaeans, Book I refutes this idea, saying,
“. . . the punishments of God are Holy, as they are remedial and salutary in their effect upon transgressors; for they are inflicted, not to preserve them in their wickedness, but to make them cease from their sins. The abyss . . . is indeed the place of punishment, but it is not endless. The anguish of their sufferings compels them to break off from their sins.”
Perhaps this gives us some idea why Augustine, the ex-Manichean, could not shake the idea that evil would exist forever in the sinners sent to the lake of fire.
Ambrose of Milan (340-397 A.D.)
Ambrose was the one through whom Augustine was converted from Manicheanism to Christianity. Ambrose wrote in his In Psalm 1, ch. 54,
“Our Saviour has appointed two kinds of resurrection, in accordance with which John says, in the Apocalypse, ‘Blessed is he that hath part in the first resurrection;’ for such come to grace without the judgment. As for those who do not come to the first, but are reserved until the second (resurrection), these shall be burning until they fulfill their appointed times, between the first and second resurrection; or, if they should not have fulfilled in them then, they shall remain still longer in punishment.”
I find it interesting that Ambrose believed that there would be a “burning” of the sinners during the Millennium between the first and second resurrection, though John says nothing of any such thing. Ambrose himself does not tell us the nature of that fire, but he does tell us something of the duration of the judgment. He thought that some sinners would be released from the fire at the end of the thousand years, and only those who deserved a longer punishment would remain in the fire beyond the Millennium.
By no means is this a complete index of those who believed in the salvation of all men. Nor should we think that they were all agreed in every detail on how this was to be accomplished. Even so, they did all have one thing in common—they all believed that judgment would come upon the sinners, and that it was by means of this divine “fire” that all men would ultimately be saved. None of them believed that sinners would be saved apart from God’s fiery judgment.
We should also be remiss if we did not inform our readers that there were a minority of Church Fathers, particularly in the Latin-speaking Church of the Western part of the Roman Empire, who believed in eternal torment. Augustine was one. Another was Lactantius. Thus, the idea of universal reconciliation of all was not universally understood in the early Church. But even Augustine himself admitted that his own view was held by a minority of Christians. In his Enchiridion, ad Lauren. Ch. 29, Augustine wrote that there were . . .
“. . . very many, who, though not denying the Holy Scriptures, do not believe in endless torments.”
In view of Augustine’s admission, the Church today should not think it strange if some believe that God will save all mankind. They should not excommunicate or expel such Christian believers, but instead should search out the truth for themselves. And if even the search should end in disagreement, it should not become a “point of fellowship,” for if the early Church had done this, the majority of believers would have been expelled from the Church.
Christianity is based upon belief in Jesus as the Messiah, His death on the Cross in our place, His resurrection from the dead, and His ascension to the Throne in heaven, where He has been proclaimed King of all the earth. These are the essentials which define a Christian. We are justified by faith alone—not faith AND belief in any particular view of the judgments of God. We do not mean to minimize the importance of knowing the ultimate plan of God for the earth, but neither should we make these beliefs a requisite for justification.
If, then, we keep this in perspective, we will be able to discuss the things of God freely and openly in the spirit of love that Christ intended.
Edited by Mark SanguinettiLink to comment
Share on other sites
TheSongRemainsTheSame
I dig that!
God~~~ "...of all the religions out there, which one or ones do you think I endorse?"
~~~
I believe god created eternity so that we could understand a grasp of an inkling in a moment in the twinkling of an eye we shall all be changed and know even as we are known. Sum think about light.
When Pilate quested of Jesus , "What is truth?".
Jesus did not reply.
Why?
Was it because the "truth" was before Pilate literally, physically, breathing, and seeing things that could not be uttered?
Is it that "truth" is a "glass darkly" in this second heaven and earth?
but, if the "truth" shall make you free, "it" will make you free indeed.
So,
at the least
"truth" is
freedom free indeed.
And I think when the truth shall be made known, the revealing will be comparable to ~~~ eye hath not seen, nor ear heard the things which god has prepared... and the secret things belong unto the lourde.
~~~ or sum thing like that.
I believe god is:
all joy and laughter
merciful
green pastures
mountains and oceans
roknroll
&
light
&
power
&
might
&
dominion
&
that type of gig
or
all of the above and
condemning
fire & hell fire and brimestoners and gave the devil a pitch fork and a forked tail & tale and a forked tongue and a fork before the cross roads... boring
i would imagine that old sangel would have figured something out before the KJV recorded the hidden mystery.
Certainly not all is vanity. There is hope for all of ALL.. Especially that which is not seen nor heard.
And then the present reality of this world is unmercifully cruel.
But I live quite well in the midst or spite of it all. And that's the damnable thing of it all. One Tsunami and why rebuild in the face of another? History and seasons certainly do repeat themselves in the present now. And hell I'm only fifty years into this 4 billion year terra firma.
What's one to conclude?
That Now We Know?
If a tree fell in the woods and no one was around to witness the event, would it make a sound?
Well, "If" no one was around to witness the event, then how do you know the tree fell?
No. I do not believe we are a universe hanging out on the edge of a burning stick of Celestial Season Incense.
There is more to truth than discovering how to make a telescope and then making it into a HUBBLE.
We are only a slight moment here, but yet, ever been known.
i don't remember that!
very few remember the womb and subsequent birth.
but yet, a babe leaped in the womb in the presence of another babe in another womb.
that's a rather odd and extraordinary event to document.
but maybe it means something else?
~~~the truth is out there somewhere~~~
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TheEvan
Nice sentiment Mark. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but this from the same post seems to run counter to the sentiment:
It's not possible Def came by his convictions by honest study? Just as you did yours?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Sanguinetti
Really Evan? And perhaps you missed this post by Def.
And what do you call it when someone condemns a great many to eternal torment? Is that the love of God? Is that in harmony with John 3:16 and with other scriptures from both the Old and New Testament?
"For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
And yes, I do believe that the doctrine of eternal torment has roots in pagan religions of the past. With that kind of belief system I am wondering how one can even look at someone eye ball to eye ball who has not confessed Christ to their religious standard without thinking they are devils incarnate or the scourge of God. If you know then please tell me where such a low opinion of others with differing views comes from?
Edited by Mark SanguinettiLink to comment
Share on other sites
TheEvan
On your first point...good point. You're right.
As to the rest, I call it a difference of opinion. That's all.
We disagree, I am sure, on "important" points of doctrine. But I don't have a low opinion of you based on your beliefs. Not at all. People who downtalk others with differing views are simply ill-mannered. I don't consider it some manifestation of evil due to "wrong believing" or some such thing. One can refute or otherwise argue points with tremendous vehemence without resorting to vituperation, or without assigning inner motives to another one doesn't even know.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TheSongRemainsTheSame
I have been 50 years into this billions year world and billions years more exsisted before this world and beyond my arithmatic~~~ called before something that did not exist before the calling ~~~ hmm think there is something to think about?
Well, I gotta pay my bills till I die.
Such a short life of abundance unless one considers the "IN YOU" type of gig JC expressed. Whatever that may mean that the Kingdom of God is within you.
First point, second point, jeesh, is it Square Level Plumb or not?
Just a Song
Edited by oneyedjackswild1 psLink to comment
Share on other sites
TheSongRemainsTheSame
ohhh we disagree to agree that we agree and so on to disagree that we agree that we really do not know but this and that and nothing new under the sun
Link to comment
Share on other sites
TheSongRemainsTheSame
Link to comment
Share on other sites
def59
Mark, you are basing much of your argument on a humanistic approach to God. From our perspective it does not seem fair that eternal torment should follow a finite life. But that is what the scriptures teach and I have given you a real live Bible scholar to contact to discuss it with. I look at others the same as I look at myself. The lost are lost until they are saved. We all sin and fall short of the glory of God. Only through Christ do I amount to anything. Only through Christ does anyone else.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Sanguinetti
Def, the problem with your bible scholar is that he is breaking his own rules. One is suppose to base an understanding of Greek words found in the New Testament solely on the actual biblical usages with context. For the word "aion", some of his understanding he is getting from church tradition. And some of his church tradition contradicts a number of the actual biblical usages of this word. Would you like me to post again the actual verses that contradict part of his definition for the word "aion"?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
def59
I did a word study on "chosen" and I cam across this passage, which I believe sort of blows out the idea of everyone getting to heaven.
The Parable of the Wedding Banquet
1Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: 2“The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. 3He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.
4“Then he sent some more servants and said, ‘Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet.’
5“But they paid no attention and went off–one to his field, another to his business. 6The rest seized his servants, mistreated them and killed them. 7The king was enraged. He sent his army and destroyed those murderers and burned their city.
8“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. 9Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ 10So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
11“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 12‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.
13“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’
14“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”
Link to comment
Share on other sites
def59
Why is it that when anyone disagrees with you, you play the tradition card. I think Prof. Fairchild has given two good replies. Maybe you are relying on your own understanding and not heeding the spirit's call?
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Sanguinetti
Def, I will post again the contradictions according to biblical usage. My understanding is based on a study of the scriptures as I hope yours is. And one only has to read this thread to realize that I have a lot of scriptural material in support of my position. The bible says to try or test the spirits to see whether they are of God or not. How do we test them you ask? We must compare what we think we are getting by the spirit with the written word of God.
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Mark Sanguinetti
From Def:
In providing definitions for Greek words one must be disciplined to base their understanding solely on actual biblical usages of the word. From reading his many definitions I don't think Fairchild has done this.
First I notice definitions 1 and 2 which are related, a lifetime, an age or generation. There is actually another Greek word that describes this better. It is the Greek word "genea". This is Strong's number 1074 and refers to an age in the context of the generation of men as part of a family. We get our word genealogy from this.
Some of the other 7 listed are somewhat vague, for example 3 (destiny), while number 7 (a supernatural being) is perhaps in Fairchild's thinking because God is the God of the aeons. The original meaning of The word aion I understand was ‘vital force,’ ‘life;’ and then ‘age,’.
His definition number 5 (forever) is contradicted by a number of usages. Some usages of "aion" that show "aion" to have an ending are directly below. The English word in quotation marks is "aion" in the Greek.
Matt 13:39-40
39 The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the "world"; and the reapers are the angels.
40 As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this "world".
KJV
Matt 13:49
49 So shall it be at the end of the "world": the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just,
KJV
Matt 24:3
3 And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the "world"?
KJV
Matt 28:20
20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the "world". Amen.
KJV
1 Cor 2:6
6 Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect: yet not the wisdom of this "world", nor of the princes of this "world", that come to nought
KJV
1 Cor 10:11
11 Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the "world" are come.
KJV
Heb 9:26
26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the "world" hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
KJV
Below we see "aion" having a beginning. This also would indicate that "aion" is not synonymous with eternal or forever.
Luke 1:70
70 As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the "world" began:
KJV
John 9:32
32 Since "the world began" was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.
KJV
Acts 3:21
21 Whom the heaven must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the "world began".
KJV
Acts 15:18
18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the "world".
KJV
Eph 3:9
9 And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the "beginning of the world" hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:
KJV
Below we see "age" can be a time in the future and thus have a beginning. This also would indicate that it is not synonymous with eternal or forever.
Matt 12:32
32 And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this "world", neither in the world to come.
KJV
Luke 18:30
30 Who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the "world" to come life everlasting.
KJV
1 Cor 2:7
7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the "world" unto our glory:
KJV
Eph 2:7
7 That in the "ages" (for once the King James version translates it correctly) to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.KJV
Heb 6:5
5 And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers "of the world" to come,
KJV
And below we have usages of "aion" which show that it has a present time that is distinct from both the future and the past.
Gal 1:4-5
4 Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil "world", according to the will of God and our Father:
5 To whom be glory for "ever" and "ever". Amen.
KJV
Eph 1:21
21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this "world", but also in that which is to come:
KJV
2 Tim 4:10
10 For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present "world", and is departed unto Thessalonica; Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia.
KJV
To summarize in developing and deriving definitions of Greek words from the bible one must do this based on actual biblical usages of the word in question. This is both foundational and essential. If one does not follow this procedure their understanding is not helpful and this is not good biblical scholarship. For example, one could take a Greek word that is used in mythological writings and use this as a basis for understanding a biblical word and concept. In so doing one may have gained knowledge, but the actual knowledge gained may be mythology which has been mistaken for the word of God.
Edited by Mark SanguinettiLink to comment
Share on other sites
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.