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ccchhhrrriiisss
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Joined: 2003/11/23
Posts: 4779


 Re:

Hi Travis,

I think that you bring up something important by simply using the word "eternal."

To some, the idea of an "eternal" hell is unfathomable. It makes God out to be "unjust" according to worldly wisdom.

In fact, my wife and I recently watched the film C.S. Lewis: The Reluctant Convert. The film uses actors to portray Lewis at different parts of his life -- using words written or spoken at different times by Lewis himself.

At one point before his conversion, Lewis felt that the God he read about in the Bible seemed like a "villain" due to the concept of eternal rewards and eternal punishment. Indeed, human beings have a difficult time when it comes to reasoning God's ways. Job learned this in a very effective way.

However, I am struck by the concept of "eternal." Consider the following verse from the parable of the Sheep and the Goats: "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal" (Matthew 25:46).

The Greek word for both "everlasting" and "eternal" is the same. The word is "aiōnios." Of the 71 times that this word appears in the New Testament, it appears as "eternal" or "everlasting" 67 times.

For instance, it appears in Mark 3:29 as "eternal: "But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of ETERNAL damnation."

So, this same word is used to describe both the eternal nature of "life" for the righteous (after judgment) and the eternal nature of "punishment" for the unrighteous (after judgment). It's interesting that no one argues that the "eternal" nature of life with God is in question. It's the extent of the punishment for the unrighteous that some call into question.

However, it begs a question: What does "eternal" or "everlasting" in the context of time mean?

This is where I think that many believers view it in the wrong context. There is no real "time" in eternity. There is the Biblical saying that "a day with the Lord is as a thousand years and a thousand years is as a day." I don't think that this is specifically meant as math but for the sake of comparison of the infinite "now" of being with the LORD.

It's not that a quadrillion-quadrillion years is "just" punishment for those who lived their temporary earthly lives in sin and without God. Rather, there is no time in eternity. It is always "present" with the Lord (or without Him). There is no temporal dimension of "time" in the eternal state outside the physical laws of creation.

When we think of eternal life and eternal death in this way, it brings some pause into questions about how "just" it would be to render of verdict that casts someone to "everlasting fire" (Matthew 18:8) for all of eternity.


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Christopher

 2021/12/2 23:26Profile
TMK
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Joined: 2012/2/8
Posts: 6650
NC, USA

 Re:

Chris are you suggesting those in hell (or heaven) are “frozen” in time or have no sense of the passage of time?

Maybe you can flesh out more what you mean.


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Todd

 2021/12/3 8:48Profile
ccchhhrrriiisss
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Joined: 2003/11/23
Posts: 4779


 Re:

Hi TMK,

Quote:

Chris are you suggesting those in hell (or heaven) are “frozen” in time or have no sense of the passage of time?

Maybe you can flesh out more what you mean.



I'm saying that I don't think that we can fully grasp the concept of "eternity" (and its lack of time) -- especially as it applies to mortal human beings changed to immortality (I Corinthians 15:53-55).

My point is that "time" (as we know it) does not exist in eternity (at least in the sense of quantifiable earthly terms). It is difficult for our minds to grasp something that is so foreign and, well, beyond our understanding.

This is just something to think about in light of passages that talk about "everlasting life" and "eternal damnation." It will simply be the "ever" in "forever."


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Christopher

 2021/12/3 12:14Profile
JFW
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Joined: 2011/10/21
Posts: 2009
Dothan, Alabama

 Re: brother Chris

/ This is just something to think about in light of passages that talk about "everlasting life" and "eternal damnation." It will simply be the "ever" in "forever." /

That’s an effective way to articulate it 😇
according to scripture it is indeed “fixed” as it were and to flesh “ever” out of “forever” to illustrate that aspect is an accomplishment in itself :)

So (for me) it’s not as if God is personally, proactively torturing people eternally in hell.... rather He will have stopped “time” in the sense that we currently understand it (no more day and night) and states that it will be a fixed and therefore final (but continuous) situation.
Every parable, every warning, every discourse in scripture pertaining to this issue is consistent in this point, not to mention that no one, not even the son, knows when exactly that hour will come, but when it does.... the gig is up. It’s a bit like musical chairs... and Jesus promises you a seat at His table if you keep step with His spirit 🙏🏻


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Fletcher

 2021/12/3 14:39Profile
TMK
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Joined: 2012/2/8
Posts: 6650
NC, USA

 Re:

Chris-

I might be mistaken but you seem to be suggesting that perhaps a hell of eternal torment may not be as bad as we might imagine because we don’t know what “eternal” means.

I was going to let that pass but I guess I can’t.

That’s because it’s the proponents of eternal conscious torment who stress the never ending punishment with their talk of undying worms, etc. Proponents of that view want it to be as bad as possible, quite frankly as a scare tactic (which I still believe is ineffective).

In other words, I don’t hear proponents of eternal conscious torment trying to “soften” it. They want it bad, very bad. And they should be objecting to your attempt to perhaps soften it by claiming we really don’t know what eternal means.

In the context of eternal torment, proponents of that view say that it means exactly forever and ever followed by an infinity of evers.


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Todd

 2021/12/3 15:40Profile
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Joined: 2011/10/21
Posts: 2009
Dothan, Alabama

 Re: brother Todd

You wrote ; “ In the context of eternal torment, proponents of that view say that it means exactly forever and ever followed by an infinity of evers.”

Here ya go-

In the context of eternal torment, the scriptures clearly and repeatedly say that it means exactly forever and ever followed by an infinity of evers.


Fixed it ;)


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Fletcher

 2021/12/3 17:59Profile
TMK
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Joined: 2012/2/8
Posts: 6650
NC, USA

 Re:

Haha- well I disagree with how you are interpreting those scriptures, obviously.

But that wasn’t the point of what I said. It was in reference to Chris’s point that eternal may not mean forever as we understand that term.


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Todd

 2021/12/3 18:08Profile
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Joined: 2011/10/21
Posts: 2009
Dothan, Alabama

 Re: brother Todd

I love you brother and very much miss your sharp wit and sense of humor so tho we may come to different conclusions, we are still one in Christ😁


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Fletcher

 2021/12/3 19:46Profile
ccchhhrrriiisss
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Joined: 2003/11/23
Posts: 4779


 Re:

Hi TMK,

I am not trying to diminish the weight of torment with "eternal damnation." There is nothing that could be worse. I'm just saying that those who try to reason away this concept or even interpret Scripture to explain away this concept often do so with the idea of God as a "villain" (as C.S. Lewis stated) or by assigning human notions of "justice" to God.

My point is not to the nature of Hell/Lake of Fire/Eternal Damnation. Rather, it's the perplexity of what "eternal" and "everlasting" means. As I said, the same Greek adjective is used for both. I don't know anyone who argues that "eternal life" would be temporary.

Then again, that's precisely my point. There is no "temporary" in "eternity" because the root of "temporary" is the notion of "time" (i.e., "tempus"). If time is a construct (or even a dimension) to the physical universe that God created, then it isn't present in the spiritual (or, at most, a "type and shadow" of the spiritual).

Remember the Sheep and the Goats (Matthew 25:41-46). When the righteous are judged, they go to "eternal life" -- which is to be "present with the Lord." It can be described as the "ever" and eternal "now" of being present with God. Conversely, the unrighteous go to "eternal punishment" -- which is an eternal "now" of punishment away from the Lord.

I suppose that I am simply bringing up the (what I feel is the likely) absence of time in eternity and what perspective this raises when it comes to thoughts on "eternal life" and "eternal punishment."


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Christopher

 2021/12/3 20:53Profile
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Joined: 2012/2/8
Posts: 6650
NC, USA

 Re:

I get what you are saying regarding the construct of time and all that. But boiled down very simply it seems that time as experienced by us simply means duration. An experience of the passing of time must exist in heaven. If we see the Savior walking from point A to point B we are experiencing the passing of time. In John’s vision he saw elders casting their crowns. Watching the crowns leave their hands and fall to the pavement involves the passing of time.


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Todd

 2021/12/4 8:47Profile





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