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**So the wages of sin is the END of life, not an eternal life filled with torture.**

So are you alive when you are in hell? — You talk about the end of life as being punishment. Then everyone who dies is being punished — even those who died in the state of grace and have incorrupt bodies.

I think you might be taking the Bible a little to literally there.

The end of life is a hell of eternity in everylasting flame and ashes.

So now, I have a question for you. What do you believe for someone who dies in the state of sin? Christ separates the sheep from the goats. The sheep go to everlasting life. The goats go to everlasting separation from God in hell.

So now, I have a question for you. What do you believe for someone who dies in the state of sin?

EVERYONE dies in a state of sin. Our righteousness is as filthy rags. However, those who have accepted Christ's sacrifice are granted Christ's perfect righteousness, which is our salvation.

What will happen for the believer is our works will be judged and those works which are of Christ will be rewarded, those which are not will be destroyed, but our foundation, our salvation is secured through Christ, and not anything we have done.

1Cor. 3:10-15 According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;

Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is.

If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.

If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

What will happen for the unbeliever is they will stand before their Maker, the Creator of the Universe, and be judged by what was "on the books" (probably their works vs. what the actual cost of salvation is) and be shown that there was a place in the Book of Life for them, but they choose not to accept Jesus's gift of salvation. Then they will be tossed into the Lake of Fire and destroyed.

Rev 20:12-15 And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is [the book] of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.

And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Now, these verses do mention "death and hell". What is interesting is how the sea gave up their dead AS WELL AS "death and hell". Our thought process has been no matter where you died (at sea or in space or on land) you would either go to Heaven or Hell. Apparently, from the above verse, you can skip "hell" by dying at sea.

What the above verses are basically saying is that all of the unsaved dead, everywhere are being judged. Now, on the question is "hell" a punishment, like the Luke parable of the rich man? Maybe, but it would be a spiritual "torture" like in Luke and not a physical one, because the physical body is dead. However, "hell" and it's "torture" will be ended/destroyed in the Lake of Fire. The Lake of Fire will destroy the soul, which is why this is called the "second death".

The only entities which appear to suffer forever and ever are the Anti-Christ, his false prophet, and Satan.

Rev 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [are], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

In my studies, I have found a few things which takes a bit to go into, but basically "hell" is the English translation for the Greek word "hades" which was understood as the place of the dead. Now Greek mythology is NOT Biblical theology, so the only thing you can take from that is the writters of the New Testament were simply saying that hell is where the soul of the dead wait until judgement.

One other aspect of the word "hell" is that the proper Name Gehenna is sometimes translated into "hell" also. This is wrong because Gehenna is the name of a geographical location in Israel (just like the Alamo in Texas) which was a site of national punishment for the nation of Isreal. Those verses with Gehenna in it are Jesus warning Israel of a coming national punishment, which happened around 70AD when the Temple was burned and Isreal dispursed.

As for taking the Bible "too literally", I'd rather stand before my Maker as having studied the ways of man and the Word of God and stuck "too literally" to the Word of God.