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Your student sounds a bit like me. 8->

I’ve ben a student of Revelation for a couple of decades now, though. There is a great site that covers how I feel about this to the point that I just post it here as how I interpret scripture regarding Hell:
http://www.jeremyandchristine.com/articles/eternal.php

His link to the interpretation of Lazarus and the Rich Man is also very good.

BTW, regarding this: “I’d rather live like eternal literal hell is real and die to find out I was wrong...”

I’d rather live like Jesus died for my sins and I accept Him as my personal savior. The Hell thing becomes pretty irrelevant for me.

Regarding all scripture about eternity, I very much consider it the equivalent of trying to explain the color “red” to someone who only sees in black and white. It is a study in our willingness to apply strange phrases to our understanding of reality. That is why I use the river/ocean analogy. I also use a “slaughterhouse” analogy regarding the lake of fire. If the fire is never quenched, but it is ineternity - outside of “time” - then what does that really mean? And if it IS in time, then it is like a slaughterhouse that exists for a hundred years. If you say a steer was slaughtered in a slautherhouse that existed for 100 years, it does not mean the first steer was slaughtered for that long. The steer did “stay slaughtered” though, for at least that long. ;->

Thanks for the link. I will certainly read it carefully.

I’d rather live like Jesus died for my sins and I accept Him as my personal savior. The Hell thing becomes pretty irrelevant for me

That's the way it should be... but it is not the way everybody sees it. Imagine someone is driving down the road, past a "wrong way" sign, towards the proverbial bridge that is down. You are saying that, unless I stop them because they ignored the "wrong way" sign, I have no business stopping them! If I stopped them because they are going to fall in the river, I am guilty of fearmongering, right? Yes, if they had obeyed the traffic sign they bridge down would be irrelevant... but the fact is they didn't and if I don't stop them they are going to get killed. I'll stop them first, then I might point out the traffic sign. Same here, if someone comes to Jesus out of fear from hell, there's plenty of time for that person to later on understand what Jesus did and follow Him out of love! But I won't stop hollering "the bridge is down" or "hell is eternal" for as long as people are heading to their doom.

If you say a steer was slaughtered in a slautherhouse that existed for 100 years, it does not mean the first steer was slaughtered for that long. The steer did “stay slaughtered” though, for at least that long. ;->

Maybe that's your problem, you are trying to understand God! Do you remember Isa 55:8-9? “ For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. “ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts."

Interesting article! The author seems to like analogies, so let me try myself. Imagine that I plot a way to break into a bank's vault and walk away with a million dollars. A consideration would be "what will happen if I get caught?" If the answer is "I'll have to return the money, then I can go free" then I might as well try, because worst case scenario I would be just like I was before attempting the robbery. That wouldn't be much of a punishment, would it? If the worst thing that can happen to a person who denies Jesus is to be annihilated, returned to the nothing that he was before being created, could you call that a punishment? So the question is, one way there's no punishment to speak of, the other way the punishment seems to us excessive. What is the answer? I don't know, but I do know one thing: whatever God does, it will be absolutely right and fair. It is none of my business to pass sentence on unbelievers, the Father has committed all judgment to the Son (John 5:22).

I agree with CynicalBear that denying the existence of an eternal place of torment gives hope that you "won't be punished forever". And that tells me who does that theory come from... the great deceiver, Satan himself! It is to his advantage to get people to believe that hell does not exist, or is not a literal place of torment, or at the very least does not last forever. Many will be deceived and will find out how wrong they were when it's too late for them!