Intermediate Hell?

Me2: Your posts sound like something off the II board, IMO, as they have a familiar ring to them.

 

i think youve been watching too much jonathan edwards on tv. the guy who lets relatives and friends talk with "the dead". common sense tells you that we will be judged before proceeding to our future destination. mary dont communicate to the living. that would be way too confusing. shintoism is a strong belief of the japanese. praying for the dead to help the living. more myths. zorastrians and the egyptians both believed in an afterlife. a resurrection. transmigration.... coming back as something or someone else. or even paying for your crimes or faults in an eternal state or your next existence. plato thought about an eternal soul (or immortal). just to name a few misconceptions that was invented before jesus got there. remember the jews were in babylon (zorastrians). Remember the story of the valley of dry bones. Speak to the bone. That was a little story That god threw into the bible that included the cult of the zorastrians, waiting for their ressurection.How About Mummies. Where do they "go".That was way back in moses time. Still Being taught right before jesus got there.
translation from hebrew or aramaic or latin to greek to english. weve messed it up. it makes believing the bible an impossible task. everything we understand about god is by faith. he has to communicate and have a personal relationship with us. for us to even try to believe what "his word" means.
theres a lot of weird, funny, sad, interesting things that we can talk with god about in his word. hell, sheol, gehenna, hades, grave, tartarus,tophet...what translation are we using for this moment. My readings (and interpretations) is that the old testament writers never mentioned a physical place other than "the pit" for hell. the only mention of anything related to death is unseen. a state other than living. up pops this fable,this myth, this story to get these peoples attention. a story that they have heard of before. jesus wraps a parable into this story to allow the pharasees to look at themselves. at the moment.
this is a parable that a few people concentrate or focus to. to describe hell. the doctrine of eternal torment requires this parable to be absolutley true.
find a new one. this story is bases on myths and current folklore of the day. even the saducees would not accept the teachings of our forefathers to be included into public teachings. Isnt That What Jesus Was Warning The People about. Go Figure.

 

sorry eagle,
what was this board you were speaking of?

 

Whoa! Me2 you have some thought-rot happening! If you can't rely on the Word of God to define the truth, which is what your posts imply, then you must define it yourself (though apparently with help from the internet). Making your own truth and God is an ancient preoccupation of man. Surely the sad record of human history proves the folly in this.

Do you not believe that an omnipotent God is able to preserve the integrity of His Word? I do. And that makes all the difference in how I read His Word.

[ April 17, 2002, 01:36 PM: Message edited by: aiki ]

 

Hrhema, are you saying that the place of torment the rich man was in was a place other than Gehenna? Are there two places of torment, two lakes of fire? From what I have read Hades is not as Gehenna is. It is a realm (for lack of a better word) that contains, or did contain, both Gehenna and Paradise. The Hell that is cast into Gehenna along with Death, I thought, was Hades.

 

i believe tha god is able to anything... his word is for those who are ready to receive it
line upon line precept upon precept... for the last 25 years ive been trying to live by this book.this word .this relationship. trust me when i act glib. im most serious about gods word but,....there are interpretational problems. the same words (barring language usage) make the bible a hard read. it has to be studied. and most of all within the context of a relationship with God. we get different intepretations (context) when viewing it in hebrew or greek. the words dont seem to have the same effect. talking with people that rely on one verse to desribe an idea or perhaps even relying on one word (yes even one word) to hinge their entire life on. I need a ton of faith. almost got to hold it in my hand.
go ahead and read plato, or origen,or philo judeas...these guys were very deep thinkers for their times. study the times of hellenistic jews or plotemaic egypt..this is where the jews were 500 years to jesus. the most plurific expansion of knowledge of its day and its happening with the people of the bible. what they think and feel. this is true. jesus kept talking about not adding the forefathers religious beliefs with the teachings of the old testament. you know the old testament was in print in the day of jesus.....all the religious trash from these other cultures. I want to know what these beliefs were at the time of jesus to validate what i read in MY GODS WORD
being a rational person with your very life depending on what you belive. you will search out the truth. even to the point of investigating all the writing available.
think about other christian religions with different interpretations of the same verses. Who Is Right. ? your whole life can depend on your escatalogical intepretations. the way you act and think. dont you think people can be pretty stuck up with their views. like they are actually going to add to or change their life with this tidbit of info. whats going to happen?.
that is the way the pharasees thought. i dont think jesus liked the way they acted too much.
look at the verses we are talking about. interesting that they words are being used against such persons.

 

Folks, is Me2 saying that Jesus, telling "fables", was not speaking truth?

 

What I am stating is that the Book of REvelation states that Hell and Death and the Grave will be cast into the Lake of Fire. Some people have tried to say that the Hell Jesus was talking about was the grave but the Book of Revelation dispels this theory.

According to the Bible there is a place for saved soul right now and a place for lost souls. Jesus said that the Rich man was in torment and in flames. This was no fable. No made up Story.
As God he was speaking of a reality. It does not make any difference that other religions believed in a place of torment. These people had some sort of revelation but not of truth. Satan allows many to see partly but not totally.

What confuses people is the fact that the Book of Revelation speaks of the Great White Throne Judgement.

And I saw a great white throne, and I saw the one who was sitting on it. The EArth and sky fled from his presence, but they found no place to hide. I saw the dead, both great and small, standing before God's throne.

This does not state all the dead from the beginning of time. We see those who are judged whose name is in the Lambs Book of Life yet we know after the rapture takes place the church will be judged at the judgement seat of Christ
These who are being judged at the White throne are those who came through the Great Tribulation.
The saints who have already been judged by Christ will not be judged again at the Great White Throne.

The Bible says after a man dies then comes judgement. The judgement is immediate for the sinner. The judgement is rejecting Christ.
These souls that are lost and cast into Hell will not stand before God again at the GReat White Throne. The Hell they are in will be cast into the greater abyss, the Lake of Fire where the Anti-Christ, False Prophet and finally Satan and his angels will be cast.

B

 

Helo Dr Bob,
I Was Only Speaking About Using History To Broaden The Mind and familiarize oneself with the current lifestyles and possibilities of thought. wasnt it predicted that jesus would have to speak to certain people in parables to hide the mysteries of god. wasnt jesus at a dinner with pharasees?
this was the reason why he spoke to certain peoples:
Mat 13:10 And the desciples came, and said unto him, Why Speakest thou unto them in parables?
Mat 13:11 He Answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
Mat 13:12 For whosoever hath,to him shall be given, and he shall have more in abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
Mat 13:13 Therefore speak i to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
Mat 13:14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of isaiah, which saith, by hearing, ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
Mat 13:15 For This peoples heart is waxed gross, and theis ears are dull of hearing and their eyes they have closed.

Anyway, I Was Only Pointing out that jesus was speaking to the pharasees in a parable.

 

Hrhema, you make some...interesting statements about who is judged at the Great White Throne and that the Hell cast into the lake of fire is not Hades. They seem very assumptive. Could you provide some concrete scriptural support for what you have said in your last post? Thanks.

 

The scripture text I used is found in Revelation 20.

The problem with interpreting scriptures is that people read one scripture and compound or create a doctrine out of it or a theory. We have to learn to balance our beliefs using different and various scriptures.

Most of the time when the word Hades was used it was speaking of the grave. The place of torment was Gehenna. In Revelations 20 the original language said that Hades, Gehenna, and Death would be cast into the Lake of Fire.

The scriptures tell us that it is once appointed unto man to die then judgement. Some people believe in soul sleep where the body, spirit and soul stays in the grave until Resurrection day.
Then all comes out of the grave and stands at the Great White Throne Judgement. This flies in the face of scripture because there is enough proof that upon the death of a Christian they go to Heaven or Paradise. Now would it be fair for the saved to get their reward and the lost not?

Paul speaks of the church being judged by Christ and rewards handed out. Why would the church who is already in Heaven have to stand before God the Father at the Great White Throne Judgement when they have already received their rewards?

The annihilationists believe that the lost will be disintergrated. God will consume them and they will be no more. Yet, there is no scripture to base this belief on. They cannot accept the idea of eternal torment and punishment.

 

hrhema, you are exactly right, and explain things so well.

There seems to be a lot of confusion about end-time prophecy on this board, so can one conclude it is generally NOT taught in Baptist churches anymore?

I might add that Gehenna was also the burning garbage dump. (info from my Internet search)

 

Prophecy seems to be at the bottom of the barrel in a lot of churches.

Gehenna was a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem
and the fires were kept continuously burning for health reasons. This was what Jesus likened unto Hell.

 

Hrhema, why do you think that Gehenna and the lake of fire are not one and the same?

 

[ April 20, 2002, 09:35 PM: Message edited by: aiki ]

 

[ April 20, 2002, 09:40 PM: Message edited by: aiki ]

 

The term Gehenna was used by Jesus to describe Hell. According to the Book of Revelation Gehenna or Hell will be thrown into the Lake of Fire. According to Jesus in Luke there is an intermediate place of punishment just like Paradise and Heaven is different.

 

Hrhema, I have checked my Greek-English interlinear N.T. and scrutinized my Vine's Expository Dictionary and both indicate that the word "hell" used in the Revelations 20 reference you mentioned is speaking of Hades, not Gehenna. Given that Hades contains Gehenna, I suppose one could argue that when Hades is thrown into the lake of fire so is Gehenna, but this leaves me with my question about there being a second Gehenna-like hell.

 

Jesus did say there was a certain Rich man…. Then he goes on to call him by name…. I don’t believe this is a parable at all….. The Bible says that both “death and Hell” will give up their dead…. This distinguishes between two states of death… The death of the body, with the soul going back to God, and the death of an unsaved individual who goes into the flames of hell… This hell is different from the lake of fire and brimstone… The hell that the rich man was in, he could see what was happening in father Abraham’s bosom… When one is thrown into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, I haven’t read anything that would suggest that they could see anything… This is a great punishment to be apart from the only true light, all through eternity without end…..JMHO..

Peace, Gary