Replies

I’ll stick with the scripture over your random links, thanks.

Me too.

The links are discussions and studies of the subject. Kinda what we are doing. I just felt I didn’t need to re-invent the wheel so I offered those.

I was discussing this with a member of my own church, using scripture to argue my case, and he finally grabbed his large King James bible, held it up and said, “I choose to believe what this bible says.” My response was, “You mean your interpretation of what it says.” His face got really red and the discussion was over.

This subject is kinda like the evolution debate. Both sides are a religion but only one admits it. Both of us are getting our information from the same bible. Where we differ is regarding what scripture we choose to take at face value and what scripture we choose NOT to take at face value.

You argue that any time the bible is interpreted to phrases like “forever” that it means the equivalent of time with no end, even though I can show scripture that proves that is not what it means. Meanwhile, I argue that any time the bible uses the word “death” it means something ends and dies. Both can be argued to one degree or another.

But regarding eternal torment, although I believed it for most of my Christian life (since 1981 until about two years ago) I never really studied it and always had a hard time reconciling it to my loving - and just - God. The seeds of my change of heart were being planted for most of that time and it finally came to a head. I then actually studied the subject, looking at the relevant scripture and how it related to the contextual scripture as well as the rest of the bible and the personality of God.

I now believe that much of the confusion is that we don’t really understand what “eternity” really is. It is pretty clear that it is not merely time never ending because time itself is a part of our world.

Also, I started a new job about 8 months ago where I commute 2.5 hours round trip of country road (no traffic) driving and listen to the entire bible in very large chunks over and over again. It has given me new perspective on a LOT of things.

My God lets the punishment fit the crime. It’s an Ecclesiastes thing. Those that accept Christ will receive eternal life. Those that don’t will be resurrected at the great white throne and at that point WILL suffer the “second death”. They will be no more. And they will stay that way, “forever and ever”. For those “not God”, it will be as though they never existed. And God says he has the ability to forget, so it will be the same for Him.

This is not scripture, for my word is not scripture. It is simply what I believe from serious study of the subject an re-reading God’s word with that perspective. It seriously opened up scripture and clarified both God’s love and His sense of justice and dealing with the sins of man.

But opinions vary.