re: People thrown into it, people who reject Christ, people who don’t have eternal life...SURELY DIE.
So, why is the rich man conscious and in torment, needing Lazarus to come and cool his tongue?
First torment, then destruction.
So, why is the rich man conscious and in torment, needing Lazarus to come and cool his tongue?
http://jeremyandchristine.com/articles/lazarus.html
It's a parable. If we want to take any aspect of it literally then all of it has to be taken literally. The parable explain how the Jews (the rich man) had it all..the promises of God, the covenants, the commonwealth of faith. And how the gentiles were shut out by the Jewish religion. They were outside the gates of the temple...we're allowed in unless they went through extraordinary measures with the Jewish religious system. The jews gave them scraps, but that was it.
That's not what God intended or put down in scripture.
If we want to use a parable as the literal interpretation of a concept of an idea then the kingdom of God is pearl. A literal pearl. We should go looking for it.
If we want to take the parable of Lazarus and the rich man as literal then we're forced to think that Abraham is God because in the parable Abraham has God like powers. In fact God isn't even mentioned. And if this is literal how could one drop of water on a fingertip assuage any type of suffering? Look at the elements of the parable and apply them to the lesson being taught. It's not a statement about heaven and hell...but like all parables it uses imagery to get across a point.