Will God Really Burn People Forever in Hell? | Table Talk S03 E12

These have been really exciting discussions and I've learned a lot just through the process of conversing about these hard questions. True. But here we are coming to almost the end. We're on discussion number 12, and we're about to tackle something that is genuinely a hard question we're going to delve into.

Well, all of them have been genuinely.

Well, all of them.

I thought the same thing. I was like.

And those other ones were the easier modification. This one's harder than all the others. No, no, it's not.

This is a hard question.

This is a hard question.

What is the question?

The question is this. Will God really burn people in hell for eternity? Now that's relevant. That's relevant from two angles at very least. One is there's a bunch of people in the world who believe it. And on the other hand, there's a lot of people in the world who don't believe it and consequently don't believe in God at all because of that doctrine.

Wouldn't you even say that, at least in the Christian world, the majority of. Of Christianity probably would lean towards that direction?

Not probably. That's factually a relevant topic.

Oh, look at it since you brought up, you know, from that angle, there's about 1.2 billion Catholics, probably about a billion Protestants, and pretty much all of those professed Christian believers subscribe to the doctrine of eternal torment. Then if you take in also the one point, whatever billion Muslims, they also believe in eternal torment. You've got basically half the human race who believes that God will torture people.

For eternity or maybe to soften it very slightly, that God would allow them to be tortured for eternity. In other words, God may not be the active agent in it, but he's. At least he acquiesces to it. He's complicit. He's. Hey, look, that's a choice you've made and I'm going to allow it to continue to happen. In other words, he's not maybe actively.

And a percentage of the people who remain from the percentage you described are comprised by people, many who have reacted to that and decided that. Nah, not into it. Not into religion.

Well, could we begin by just talking about.

Well, can I say something at the outset?

Sure.

This is the most hideous conceivable picture of God. It's impossibly difficult, it's just impossible to reconcile that picture with God. A God that would do that, would be capable of that, that would take pleasure in that, with the God that we've been exploring in the first 11 conversations. So I just want to put all my cards so maybe we could just close with that. I was just thinking we'll just.

I think it's there.

So you don't believe in hell?

I don't believe. I thought the specific question was will God burn or will allow? What was the question?

Will God really burn people forever in hell?

Yeah, I think that's an easily answered question.

What's the answer?

No, no, no.

Let us close with prayer.

He would still affirm to answer your question.

The reality, the reality of hell, of what scripture teaches about hell, of what it is.

Okay, so we'll get to what scripture teaches, but maybe it'd be good to begin by just talking a little bit about the idea of torture.

Well, I wanted to just touch on what David said with a story or illustration. You said that this is probably the most despicable representation of God that you could find in Christianity, let's say in the world.

I can't imagine something worse.

I was traveling down south in what we understand to be the Bible Belt. The reason it's called the Bible Belt is because this is where the majority of Christians in the United States reside. They live in this part of the United States. They call it the Belt because it's just one state after another after another after another with majority of people that are just Christians. And I was looking for a radio station because I was traveling for a few hours in a car. And it's not hard to find Christian.

Radio in the Bible. Every single time you click it, it's like another one.

So it wasn't an issue of finding one. It was an issue simply of finding one that was interesting. I came upon this one that was teaching this idea of hell. And it was a call in station and in the context of listening. And the reason I was listening was because I was just trying to understand why people would teach this or believe this. I knew that I was raised in a church. I was raised Catholic, so I was raised in a church that taught and believed this. But once I started beginning to study the Bible, it was just obvious to me from biblical understanding and teaching that no, this isn't. There's a few texts that we need to understand, but this isn't the basic general picture. So as I'm listening, I'm learning something that would take this one step further. And that's why I wanted to bring up this illustration. I would take it one step further. And that is that these two gentlemen who were running this talk show also believed in predestination. Yes, Calvinism. They believed that God had chosen certain people to be saved and certain people to be lost. There was nothing that anyone can do about that. And therefore, think about this. God in his foreknowledge has chosen certain people for their only purpose in life is to burn eternally in hell. And I just turned that radio off. I didn't even look for another station. I just turned that radio off. Tears came to my eyes and I just started thinking. There are people in this world that are being taught this and believing. And the reason why I say that is because people were calling in, and one person called in trying to say, well, wait a minute. And they just shut them down. You know how they do that sometimes? They shut them down. And I thought, wow, there are people in this world and that is their picture of God. That is the picture they're receiving from God.

And not only is that tear inducing and anger inducing and confusion inducing, but then to call that part of the good news.

I'm sorry, I missed the good news part. Okay, maybe the good news is that you don't have to go there. Go there. Okay, that's the good news. But you have to go spend eternity with a God who would superintend that process. Who would think that that's. Both of those are equally unappealing to me.

That's a good point. And let's just put it out there straight. The fact is, you're spending eternity with God in eternal bliss in paradise. And there are people who, in this life, you have known that, aren't there, maybe your children. So you have to somehow balance the idea in your mind forever and ever that somewhere in the universe, wherever it is, somewhere, people I've known right now are writhing in the agony of the flames. As I'm partaking of fruit from the tree of life, they're surfacing again in the flames. That's astonishing. It's just.

It's so patently absurd. And I'm not saying that there are not some texts, as you said, James, that we have to wrestle through and we'll do that, but the more that this comes to light and the more you think about it, and of course the mind can't comprehend eternity. The mind can't comprehend this depth of torture, the pain that would be. I mean, but in as much as we can comprehend it, the absurdity of it is evident, in my opinion.

We should probably mention as well that in recent years, even within mainstream Christianity, where this is pretty much a foundational.

Teaching, there's been a kickback against it.

Well, there's been specific key players, key leaders, key preachers that have said, wait a second, wait a minute, wait a second. The more I think about this, the less I could reconcile it with the life and teachings of Jesus.

And not just the more you think about it, but the more they go to the text. They go to the text and they say, well, wait a minute, there's other ways, better ways to understand these texts. And the thing that's the most fascinating is not that the, you know, the what's E.W. fudge and Rob Bell and N.T. wright and Clark Pinnock. These are some of the names.

Gregory Boyd, John Stott.

John Stott. It's not just that there are these well known influential evangelical theologians and preachers that are saying, hey, let's reconsider that. Let's just hold that up to the scrutiny of scriptural investigation. To me, the most fascinating part is that the, the pushback against them is that, oh, you're denying scripture, you're denying the truth, you're soft selling the text. And it's like, people don't want to give this up.

Why? What's behind that? What's the psychology behind actually wanting for there to be a doctrine of eternal torment that is sustained? Why would you want to believe that?

I think it goes, I can't imagine.

I think part of it goes back to, as I've studied this out, part of it goes back to missing the principle that we've been talking about and establishing as a foundation to our programs all through the series. And that is love. If you miss that principle of love motivation, then there has to be another motivation. And there are a lot of churches and a lot of people that I've talked to, spoken to, especially pastors that would say, in response to this, they would say, well, we can't teach that. We can't teach what the Bible teaches. We can't teach what you're saying and understand it the way you understand it because that would remove the motivation that people have. People would not be motivated to stay out of hell.

I gotta tell you a story.

If we somehow change it to make.

It sound like.

It'S a place, but it doesn't last forever, it doesn't burn forever. It is a punishment, but it's not eternal. That would really. We'd lose a lot of people.

We don't. I guess what you're saying is that without the factor of fear, you would have to have such a robust view of the gospel that it would serve as a motivation for continuing to love and serve God even without that Motive of fear of eternal torment. So you'd have to have a view of the gospel that would completely supplant that, that fear motive. Absolutely.

How do you answer that question, Ty?

Which one?

Well, the one about what would be the psychological motive behind that?

Wanting to keep it.

Why would you want to keep that?

Yeah, I think James got at it and that is that if we're not motivated by love, you have to be motivated by something.

And we all know that we have guilt upon our conscience. We're sinners, we're fallen. And so.

To face ourselves off and others with the threat of eternal torment is a pretty strong motivation to keep myself in line.

Hugely strong.

Yeah. So I think that might be what's going on. I also think, and we need to be very careful here, there are a lot of people who subscribe to the doctrine of eternal torment and they do genuinely love the Lord, but they're not thinking about it on a deep theological level. I've met a lot of believers who just assume that it's true because they were raised to believe that it's true, but they haven't thought about it very much. And there are all kinds of churches that simply don't preach it. And it's just in the background. It's a traditional doctrine and they assume that it must be right, but they don't want to preach it, they don't want to talk about it, they don't want to deal with it because it is pretty glaringly uncomfortable. So we don't want to suggest that anybody who believes that that doctrine is true does not love the Lord. That's just not the case.

But we're just saying that their love for the Lord is incompatible with their belief, with this. So they.

So they do love the Lord.

Absolutely. It's just that there are certain beliefs that are incompatible and we perhaps haven't made the connection. But it doesn't take away from the fact that we sincerely love the Lord.

And I just want to add to that, that while we can vigorously defend.

The authenticity and sincerity of their commitment to Jesus, and we would do that, we wouldn't even think to undermine not a Catholic, not a Presbyterian, not a Methodist, their sincerity, their commitment to God, but with equal vigor, we have to insist on what the text actually says and we can insist on the reality of the absurdity of trying to merge these two.

Incongruent, incompatible, antithetical ideas.

Right.

With your guys permission, in this conversation, perhaps more than any other conversation that we've had, we just. I want to just throw Biblical text at the dive. I just want to, like, let's just. Not that we're going to, in some definitive sense, solve this controversy, but for those people that have the privilege or the opportunity to see this conversation, let's just make it clear, by the grace of God.

Yeah. So first of all, what about. Let's just lay down a Bible verse that we regard as foundational to all biblical doctrine. 1 John 4:8. God is love. So once that scriptural outlook on God's character is on the table, then try to couple that with God saying, I love you. God is love and I love you. But if you don't love me back, I will subject you either by permitting it to happen and sustaining the system by which it will be perpetuated forever.

Correct.

Or by inflicting it upon you. I love you, but if you don't love me back, I will subject you to torture for eternity. That should produce some tension, intellectual dissonance.

Absolutely.

There's actually a video on YouTube that mocks that, where the guy is reading off and he's reading about all of the verses in the Bible about how God loves us and he cares for us and all of this. And then he says, no, excuse me, he's reading verses about judgment and so forth. And he's rehearsing the Christian belief that God will torture people in hell. And then he says what you said. And then he says, and I love you.

I love you.

And then the audience.

Yes, I love you.

Yeah, the audience just erupts in laughter. And he's saying, what is this the.

Second verse I would like us to look at in relation to this? First John 4:8 is John 3:16. These are really powerful verses. Both of these are really good verses. So first John 4:8, God is loved. Second verse, John 3:16. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish. Perish not. It doesn't say, and I like this. When we read the Bible, we need to also think about what it doesn't say, what it does say and what it doesn't say. What it does say is that those who don't believe are going to perish. What it doesn't say is that those who don't believe are going to be tortured by God for all eternity in a place called hell. It doesn't say that in the text. So I like that because that is a God is love verse. That is a God loves the world verse. And it's also helping us to Understand what? That there is a consequence. There is a legitimate consequence to not believing. But that consequence has been, I think, exaggerated by.

It's hugely exaggerated.

But I think there's more mileage on that verse. I think another way, I've always read that verse, everything you just said.

Yeah, give us some Prius.

Give us some Prius.

Even more. So the text. It's not merely what the text doesn't say, it's what the text does say. Which you were saying the same thing, just in my own different way. The text explicitly denies, like you were saying, that those who are lost have their lives perpetuated.

Because it says there's a contrast.

There's a contrast there, Right, between everlasting life and not everlasting life.

Perishing.

Right.

So that means that definitionally, to perish is the opposite of continuing to live. And in the concept of God burning people forever in hell, that supposes those individuals and their punishment are living. So I think that's a powerful verse.

It is.

And it also supposes that those who believe are given something. Those who don't believe aren't given. That's everlasting life.

There you go. That's the thing. And to add to that.

Romans 6:23.

I just wrote that down right here.

Romans 6:23. For the wages of sin is death. Same thing. But the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. That's the same point. That the wages of sin is death, and that death, that the lost experience.

Is the opposite of the gift of eternal life that comes through Jesus.

Eternal life. So this concept of God burning people in hell forever is granting eternal life to the lost. Where scripture, the gospel teaches that that is only made accessible to those who are saved in Jesus Christ.

Let me throw a text that says that very thing. First, John, chapter three, verse 15. Whoever hates his brother is a murderer. And you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him.

Whoa, whoa, whoa.

He said, you know that murderers don't get eternal life. Well, what do murderers get? Unrepentant murderers receive death. Now, we're going to get into this later, what the Bible calls the second death. But what unrepentant murderers don't get is eternal life. You know, conscious eternal life in some torturous nook or cranny of the universe. That's not what they get. They get death. They don't have eternal life.

This just makes sense to me. All of these verses just make sense. These verses aren't specifically talking about hell at all, but they are because what we're doing, as we mentioned in an earlier program, is we're moving into this slowly, just inching our way, inch by inch into this. And we're setting up a foundation here in understanding the love of God and what it means to have eternal life. We're setting up a foundation here that logically makes sense. It not only connects with the heart of God, but it logically makes sense.

Yeah, yeah. We have to take a break, but this is getting exciting now that we're getting into the text, so we'll come right back.

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There must be some logical basis for believing in eternal torment. And I think we need to approach that in scripture because there is a, a doctrine that is foundational to the doctrine of eternal torment. There is another teaching and that teaching is natural immortality. It's the idea that every human being is an immortal soul. And even though the human being dies a physical death, okay, so the body dies and decays, something survives that physical death and goes on to be with God in heaven or to be eternally tormented in hell. So what can we say about this idea that human beings live forever no matter what. So you gotta put em somewhere. Some go to heaven, some go to hell. But if the thing that we are at the base level is eternal.

We'Re not all going to heaven. It doesn't just disappear as much as it's just. Doesn't just evaporate. So.

So it makes sense why the good would go and the bad would go.

When you began by saying, ty, that there's a logical basis. It is logical if we grant that premise.

Yeah. So what's that premise?

Well, the premise is actually a patently Greek idea. And this is important to recognize because many of the modern evangelical scholars and theologians who are beginning to say, hey, let's reconsider this. The Clark Pinnocks and the John Stotts and the Rob Bells and others, the EW Fudges, they're actually saying, hey, wait a minute. This is actually the importation of a Greek idea into the biblical text rather than a wrestling with what the text itself actually says. And this Greek idea is called. The technical term is anthropological dualism. Anthropological having to do with man or pertaining to mankind. Dualism that man is made up of dual two parts. The body, which is physical and temporal, and the spirit or soul, which is immaterial and eternal. So when the body decays and the bones go back to the ground into the dust, there is an immaterial spirit soul that continues not for a year or two or ten or a hundred, forever, but indefinitely. So that's Greek. And that idea, the natural immortality of the soul, as you call it, or anthropological dualism, has been imported into the biblical text. So that there are certain passages that seem to suggest that that have been used to support this Greek idea. But in fact, the texts that we've already looked at, the John 3:16s, the first John 3:15, the Romans, chapter 6, verse 23, these texts fly in the face of the idea that we possess natural or innate immortality. Eternal life, or what we might call immortality, is granted as a gift, a gift for belief in Jesus Christ, trusting that his life, his death and his resurrection has done for us what we could never do for ourselves. That's bestowed as a gift. It's not natural, it's not innate.

So are you saying that immortality does not pertain naturally to human beings? That it's not something that we have in ourselves. Correct. But rather it's something that is bestowed upon a certain class of human beings, namely, those who are eternal, those who exercise faith. Okay, so where is immortality? Does anybody have immortality?

You got the text there, James?

No, you got it. I got another point.

Okay, so 1 Timothy 6:15 says, which he will manifest in his own time.

He who is the blessed and only potentate, king of kings and Lord of Lords, speaking of God, speaking of Christ, verse 16, who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen, nor can see, to whom be honor and everlasting power. Amen. So this is as clear as the noonday sun.

Absolutely.

God alone possesses immortality.

Does that mean nobody else has it?

Not naturally.

There are hundreds of verses in the Bible that use the word soul, and not one of them ever describes the soul as immortal.

Not one or eternal?

No, not one. And here's another point. Here's another point. We looked at the bookmarks. We looked at Genesis and Revelation. We looked at the first two chapters and the last two chapters.

In a previous conversation with what you were saying. Yes.

In a previous conversation, we looked at those two chapters as bookmarks and we said, okay, here's the beginning, here's the end, here's what God created. It was very good. Here's what he's going to have at the end of all of this mess. And everything in the middle is a mess. If you look again at those two bookmarks, you have in the opening of Creation, you have what's called the Tree of Life. It's in the Garden of Eden. And Adam and Eve partake of this Tree of Life. And this Tree of Life is something that is actually taken away from them. In other words, there's a restriction of access to the Tree of Life. When they sin, angels are sent to guard the garden. And this is just a biblical fact. They can't go in and they can't partake of the Tree of Life because God did not want sin to be eternalized. But as you go through the whole process, all through the Book of Old Testament, New Testament, you get to the Book of Revelation, guess what happens in Revelation chapter 21. In Revelation chapter 22, you now have access again to the Tree of Life. In Revelation, chapter 22, the tree of.

Life one sin is inevitable. Can I read the text just you're referring to? Because I think that's a foundational point and that's James is breaking down Genesis 3. 22, where after the fall, this is what we read. And God said, behold, the man has become like one of us, to know good and evil. And now lest he put his hand and take also the Tree of Life and eat and live forever. So just wanted to echo what you were saying. The reason that that prohibition was put in place is so that now man, as a fallen creature with sin, would not have access to the ability to.

Perpetuate sin, would not be immortalized, and sinners would not be immortalized.

And now we have Revelation 22:1. And he showed me a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb of God in the midst of the street of it. And on either side of the river was the tree of life. So in Revelation chapter 22, you have the restoration of the tree of life that has 12 manner of fruit that we partake of. It's for the healing of the nations.

And I'm going to add that Revelation 21 There, the tree of life isn't given until after revelation. Excuse me, 22 isn't given until after revelation, chapter 20, which describes what the Bible calls the second death.

Yes.

Good.

So when sin and sinners are no more, now you have the restoration of the tree of life, which is to.

Say the restoration of eternal life or immortality.

So it's not just that we would say, oh, there's no immortal soul in the Bible, or only God has immortality. We have a picture here, we have a story, an outline picture here. And we know where eternal life came from. We know that it was restricted after sin, and we know it's going to be restored after sin.

Well, let me just add a scripture to the one you read where Paul says that God alone has immortality.

Okay. And I've got another one too.

Okay. 1 Corinthians, chapter 15 explicitly says in verse 53, speaking of those who are redeemed, the saved at the second coming of Jesus Christ. It says, for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal shall put on immortality. So here is a very clear statement, Paul, regarding himself, and it applies to all of us. We're mortal, we're not immortal.

Means subject to death.

Subject to death.

You have to read verse 54.

And immortality is conferred upon the human being as a gift at this point. And it's only conferred upon those who are the saved, those that exercised faith. That's right. What did you say, James? We gotta read verse 54. We have to.

Yeah. So then, oh, so when this corruptible, again emphasizing, shall put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality. And I'm going to emphasize this. Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death shall be swallowed up in victory.

Okay, so immortality, death is dead. Immortality is something that God alone possesses. It's not natural, and human beings do not have it innately, naturally. And immortality will be bestowed as a gift upon the redeemed, and they will live forever immortally. But there's Nowhere in the Bible. Let me just throw this out. Is this.

Put it out there.

Okay. There's nowhere in the Bible where the word immortality or any configuration thereof is applied to the lost, to the eternally, to the wicked.

In fact, the opposite is applied.

Death.

Just remember Spanish. What's death in Spanish?

Muerte.

Muerte. So it's the same in the Latin, morte, like mortuary, Mortal, Mortal, immortal. So if you're immortal, you are not subject to death. If you're mortal, you're a dying creature, or you're a non dying creature. Scripture says we'll go Back to John 3:16, just briefly to remind ourselves. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him wouldn't die. Well, if you can't die, or you don't die, or you won't die, you're an immortal creature. We've established here that that's something that God alone possesses innately or naturally. Let me give you another text. Romans chapter 2, beginning in verse 5.

But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, you speaking of the wicked, are treasuring up for yourself. Wrath against the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to each according to his deeds, but eternal life to those who, by patient continuance in doing good, seek for glory, honor and immortality.

Wow.

Seek it.

If you're seeking for immortality, you don't have it. It's because you don't have it. God has it, we're seeking for it. And according to the text, it's sought for by reposing our faith in God, by trusting in Jesus, having come and died in our place, having lived the life that we haven't lived, died the death that we deserved, and raised to newness of life.

So when a human being dies and the body decays, is there a soul or something? This is the question that survives.

Physical death for all eternity? No. The Bible is very clear. There is no survival of a soul, regardless of a person's. Whether a person is saved or lost, there is no soul that survives for all eternity into the future of the wicked. Only those who are among the redeemed receive immortality as a gift from God. Is that accurate?

Okay. So in answer to the question, what is the soul? And just to further buttress what Ty is saying here, we described the Greek idea of anthropological dualism, that man is body and spirit, temporal and eternal. What the Bible teaches is what you might call anthropological monism. In other Words one.

And that is that mankind is a unity of body and spirit. And when those are divorced, when they are disassociated as they're unconsciousness, that's it. And that's why we find in the Bible, over and over again, he breathed his last. He gave up the ghost. Because when the breath stops, just as in Genesis when the breath started, the breath of life is breathed into the nostrils. When that stops, it's not as though just the physicality of the man or the woman stops. He as a being ceases to exist.

Can I read that, please?

Yeah, yeah.

Genesis 3:19 shows us the rewind, what happens at death. So we know. Let me lead into that. First, that in Genesis 2:7, the Bible says that the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living and living soul.

He didn't have a soul.

He became a soul.

He was a soul.

He wasn't given a soul. He became a soul. Right? And then. So that's the play button. That's how he came into being. At death, all that happens is somebody.

Presses the reverse of that, the rewind.

Button, and that is Genesis 3, verse 19. In the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. But I want to emphasize this. Till you, you. It doesn't say your soul or tell you, Adam, your holistic, whatever, you, your Eunice returned to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return. So basically, the rewind button. So to bring the human race into existence, there was the dust of the ground and there was God. God breathed life into this new being, new creature, and at death, all that happens is the rewind.

Exactly. So those Two make a one. Those two don't remain a two. That's dualism. That's monism. And when those two are disassociated, the rewind button of. Was it verse 19, Genesis 3:19. Then, Adam, you cease to exist.

That's it.

Now God can recreate you, which, hallelujah. That's what the word resurrection means, to be raised from that state of death.

Which is what will take place. So God, in some sense, and we don't know this, we can't get into the psychology of how this works. Maybe you guys know the secret or mystery of how this works. But somehow God preserves the character, the personhood of the individual. And somehow during resurrection, in the end.

He puts him back together.

God restores that.

And I think scripture explicitly says that two Scriptures to compare in Ecclesiastes, chapter 9, verses 5 and 6. For the living know that word refers to consciousness. The living know that they will die. But the dead know nothing. They have no consciousness. In other words, the dead know nothing and they have no more reward for the memory of them is forgotten. Verse 6. Also, their love, their hatred, their envy have now perished. And nevermore do they have a share in anything that is done under the sun. There's a lot there. Point number one, the living are conscious of the fact that they will die. But once a person dies, the dead person knows nothing, zilch. There is no conscious thought. And then he goes a step further and says their love is perished. Which wouldn't be the case if when you die, you go straight to heaven, because certainly your love would be alive toward God.

So you're emotionally hatred perished.

Well, if you've gone straight to hell when you die, certainly there's going to be rage and hatred and anger in your heart that is perpetuated toward God.

Which I have a point about that. But keep going.

So love has perished, hatred has perished, envy has now perished. But this is interesting. Nevermore do they have a share in anything done under the sun. And this connects with what is sometimes referred to as spiritualism, because the idea that the soul survives the body in a conscious state of some kind then prepares the way for the idea that human beings who have died do have a share in what is done under the sun. You have this idea that deceased relatives return to speak with, to commune with, to interact with in everything from seances to Ouija boards to just a person alone in their home after a loved one has perished and having an encounter with a voice or an apparition of some kind. This scripture says that there is no consciousness after death, and therefore the individual has no share in anything done under the sun that is on planet earth. But I said there were two scriptures in Ecclesiastes to compare. The next one is in Ecclesiastes chapter 12 and verse 7. And this one is fascinating. And this gets to what Geoffrey was raising. It says here that the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Jeffrey, you posed the question. You said, well, we know that God preserves the individual identity, the personality, the personhood, the character of a person when they die, so that that person can be restored to conscious existence in a new body at the resurrection. Well, check this out. This scripture tells us exactly what happens. This scripture says that the dust that is the body, the Physical dimension basically says it returns to the earth. It decays.

Correct.

It just. It rots in the earth. It's compost. But the spirit returns. In what form? Well, he told us earlier, not in a conscious form. No love, no hatred, nothing like that. God.

It returns to God.

It returns to God. This is what I think happens. I think that a person lives their life and this scripture is telling us that there is what you call personhood, personality, character, the composite identity of the individual and God, I like your word, preserves that data so that at the resurrection, a new body can be created and God can take the hard drive, as it were, of that data, that information that composed the. The personality and the identity, and just slap it back into a new model, so to speak. A new body.

Incorruptible.

Incorruptible immortal body. That's why Paul spoke of. Paul was a tent maker. He made tents, and tents were houses in his time. And he said he was looking forward to putting off this tent and moving into a new tent.

Second Corinthians 5.

So he's basically saying my body constitutes the house in which I live. And I'm looking forward to the immortality. Immortal body, but I'll be the same person.

You know, we actually thank you for that, Ty. That's beautiful. We actually have language that communicates that we feel at some level, a disassociation from our body. We do this a lot. We'll say things like, oh, yeah, my arm. I went to throw, but my arm betrayed me.

Now who's the me?

Yeah, if your arm is you, then who is the arm betraying? We say these things a lot. Just the other day I was watching a skateboard video. I love to skateboard. And there was a skateboarder by the name of Trevor Colden. And he was trying to do this line, and he kept falling, kept falling, trying to do these different tricks. And he said, listen to what he said. Because he only had so much time to get this trick done. It was a contest. And then he said, well, I'll be able to make it. I don't know if my body will see, we're communicating, that we understand that there is an usness that is not our physicality. And the illustration I like to use is, say you're involved in a car accident and you lost your right arm, so you became an amputee. Or maybe you lost both arms. Okay, so now you are considerably less by volume.

Yeah. But not less you.

But you're still James, I'm still David, you're still Jeffrey. So when God takes that hard drive, as you said, or that data that makes up the you ness of Jeffrey and the you ness of James and the you ness of Ty and the meanness of David, and injects it into a new body, well, that's still me. And I'll be.

Whoa.

So same person.

My biceps. I know this will be hard to imagine.

Here we go.

They will probably be even bigger than they are now.

I can't imagine that.

You know, you guys, we're a little bit over. We have to take a break. But we have a whole on that. We have a third segment. So this conversation isn't over yet.

Good. Cause I've got an idea I want to share.

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This has been a pretty great discussion so far. There's no doubt, however, that we have raised questions that anybody who's biblically literate is saying, but what about this text and what about this one, this one and this one? There are verses. Let's not pretend that they don't exist. There are biblical passages that are challenging, that are difficult. So I think, in all fairness to the subject and to anybody who is studying, looking into the subject, that we should deal with those difficult passages.

So I'll first begin by pointing out that in Scripture, there are passages that use words like everlasting and eternal to describe the fire that comes upon the wicked. All right? For example, we have Matthew, chapter 25 and verse 46, and it says here and these speaking of the lost, the wicked will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. So this is using the word everlasting in the Greek. It could also be translated just eternal, eternal punishment. There are other scriptures. For example, we have in Revelation chapter 20, where the word eternal is used to describe the fire that comes upon the wicked. This one says eternal punishment. That one says eternal fire.

Correct?

Okay, so I'D like us to just spend a moment wrapping our minds around this idea of eternal. Okay. For example, when we read In Jonah, chapter 1, verses 17, and then chapter 2, verse 17 6, we have Jonah describing his experience in the belly of the whale. And he says, quote, unquote, I was in the belly of the whale forever. And then he turns around in the next breath and he says, I was in the belly of the whale for three days and three nights. Correct. So is there a contradiction here, or are we dealing with a mode of speech, a usage of language in Scripture that needs to be taken into consideration? Another example would be Exodus 21:6, where a slave, a servant, who chooses after his time of indentured servitude is over, chooses to continue serving his master. All right. By voluntary choice. When that's done, Exodus 21:6 says that he can choose to enter into a relationship with his master in which he can serve him forever. Now, we know from the text and just from logic that it's not saying that he will serve that master eternally. We know the text is telling us that forever means as long as his life lasts. Jonah is in the belly of the whale as long as the experience lasts.

Correct.

I was on an airplane recently forever. It certainly felt like forever. And I'm using the word in the sense I'm exaggerating for effect is exactly what's happening there.

And not even just an exaggeration, but the word forever or everlasting or eternal. More, forever and everlasting in these contexts, modify the thing, the nature of the thing that they're describing.

Say it again.

Okay, so these words modify the nature of the thing they're describing.

So fire, if it's eternal.

Okay, let me give what I think is a better example. So if the Bible says that the mountains are from everlasting to everlasting, as it says in the Old Testament, right? You have established the hills. They are from everlasting to everlasting. Okay, that's true. But the Bible also says that the rocks will melt. So those mountains will last as long.

As mountains can last, as long as mountains last.

The experience in the belly of the fish, that experience, the word forever modifies that kind of an experience. So here's where people fall into a tricky thing. A slave is a slave forever, and Jonah is in the belly of the fish forever, and the mountains last from everlasting to everlasting or forever, or the fire lasts forever. Okay, if you take that same word, forever or eternal or everlasting, and you apply it to God. Well, it really does mean throughout the ceaseless, eternal ages, because the nature of God, the kind of being that God is, is a being that lasts throughout unending ages. So when that word is applied to God, it means this. When that word forever is applied to an airplane ride or to a mountain, or to slavery, or to the time in the belly of a fish, it means as long as that lasts. What it technically means is without interruption until cessation.

Right.

It's not interrupted until it stops. And where people get fuzzy is they say, well, God is everlasting, but this is also everlasting. Okay, but God is a different kind of being.

Yeah, I think there's more. Oh, did you. What were you gonna say?

Well, I was just gonna look at Jude, chapter one.

Yeah, that's exactly where I was gonna.

Go in verse seven, as of Egypt. Well, I like this because this is actually giving us a biblical example. Something that happened historically, something that happened biblically. It's talking about Sodom and Gomorrah here in Jude verse seven. I say verse seven this time because Jude just says one chapter. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, going after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of. Now, we know that Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed by fire, but we know that that fire is not still burning.

But here it's called eternal fire.

Right?

So the point you're making, biblically sound point that you're making right here is verified in history. It's verified in biblical history. At least. We recognize that the eternal fire is a fire that came down upon Sodom, Gomorrah as a judgment, and that that judgment was an eternal judgment.

The consequences were eternal.

The consequences were eternal. The damnation is eternal. There is no turning around from that consequence.

Okay, throw this scripture in with Jude 7, second Peter, chapter 2, verse 6. Again, is speaking of Sodom and Gomorrah. And it says that the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were turned into ashes, condemned to eternal destruction or to destruction. So here you have two passages. You have Jude saying, sodom and Gomorrah, eternal fire. You have Peter saying, sodom and Gomorrah, ashes, destruction.

Yes.

Is there a contradiction? Do you choose based on your theology? I like this one better. I like this one better. No, you just look at the site on planet Earth or Sodom and Gomorrah, where we sit there. We could go right now, and it's not There.

There's no smoldering fire.

It's not burning.

I've actually been there and it's not burning.

Yes.

Okay, so go back to a text that you've already quoted. Ty the end of Matthew, chapter 25, when Jesus says to the lost, these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. Okay, so here we have eternal defining life. Well, that is unending because it's describing the nature of the thing. Life, Life is the opposite of death. But everlasting punishment is saying that's a punishment with everlasting consequences. We know this because the new heaven and the new earth is not a place of fiery brimstone, torturous.

And that is so key.

We know that that fire goes out, David.

That is so key because notice what it says in Revelation 14. Notice what it says here. The third angel follows with a loud voice warning against the worship of the beast and his image and his mark, verse 9. And then it says in verse 10, the same those who receive the mark of the beast, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation. And he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever. So we understand the forever and ever part. But what we don't understand about hell often is that it actually takes place in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. In other words, there's a description in Revelation 15, and it's also in Isaiah 33, I believe, that talks about this sea of glass mingled with fire. The Bible through and through talks about how God is a consuming fire to sin. And it asks the question in Isaiah 33, who's going to be able to stand in the everlasting burnings? And the answer is given in Malachi, chapter four. We're told there that the wicked won't be able to. Let me just read the verse. It says here that you will tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I do this, saith the Lord of hosts. So the wicked are ashes, just like Sodom and Gomorrah. So Sodom and Gomorrah is an example, Second Peter says, of what's going to happen to the wicked. They are actually going to.

I'd like to read a passage on that.

Great. Well said.

That's awesome. You were just in Revelation 14. And the smoke of the torment ascends forever and ever. And I encountered a passage in Isaiah 34 which you all will recognize that actually, that that language is borrowed from the Old Testament. And the picture presented in the book of Revelation for the end, the judgment in the end, hell fire, the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever. When you look at Isaiah chapter 34:8, it is the day of the Lord's vengeance, the year of recompense for the cause of Zion. Its streams shall be turned into pitch and its dust into brimstone. Its land shall become burning pitch. It shall not be quenched, night or day. Its smoke will ascend, shall ascend forever.

From generation to generation.

None shall pass through it forever and ever. That's the exact same language used in Revelation chapter 14, which just demonstrates what you've all been iterating here, that the language being used here is one of finality.

That's a great way to say it.

It's describing a picture where the effects of what's taking place are forever, are everlasting. Just like in this passage here where it's speaking of Edom, the judgment on Edom.

Well, how about this? The devil himself, Satan, is spoken of in Ezekiel chapter 28. And God is addressing him directly and says, I will bring forth a fire from the midst of you. And it the fire will devour you. And I, God, will bring you Satan, to ashes upon the earth, and never shall you be anymore.

Oh, praise God.

In other words, the devil, according to this passage, will cease to exist. The devil will be ashes under the feet of the rat.

That's not the popular picture. The popular picture is the devil is.

In hell, presiding over or by victim.

Of God, and his life is prolonged through the ceases age.

How about this? Obadiah 15:16, says of the wicked, they shall be as though they had never been, as if they had never existed.

Okay, so exactly. Jeffrey just a moment ago used a great word. He used the word finality. For us in this realm that we live in right now, death is a finality. If somebody close to you dies, they don't go to their house anymore. They're not sleeping in their bed anymore, they're not driving in their car anymore. There's a follow this, a temporary finality. In other words, there's a sense in which that's done. But it's only temporary because according to scripture, there will be a resurrection. But the Bible doesn't speak of just one death. The Bible speaks of a second death. So if A death is final in a temporary sense. Scripture says the second death is final in any sense. The second death is the death from which there is no resurrection. Right. This is Revelation 20. This is Revelation. Where's the second death? On such. The second death has no power.

Revelation 26 and Revelation, chapter 2, verse 14.

Right. So you have this idea of a second death. You die the second death from which there is no resurrection and there's the actual finality when sin and sinners are no more. The last thing I want to say, and I'll turn it over to you guys here. Ty said something a moment ago that was huge. He said, if people go into the fires of hell, they're cursing, they're filled with rage, they're filled with anger, they're whatever the conscious beings, they're. If that's the case, then sin is eternal, sin is immortal. There will always be people blaspheming the name of God, yelling against God, yelling against the. Are we really?

There's no finality there.

There's no finality. There's no end. There is a perennial eternal witness to hatred against God, blasphemy against God, rebellion against God. No. The Bible says the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

I like that too.

And sinners are no more. And God will give us a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. Have you guys joy Revelation 2:11. No, that's it.

Go.

Revelation 2:11.

Have you guys considered Revelation 21? It's kind of a roundabout way at coming at the question, but after the new heavens and the new earth are created, it says God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain. No more pain, true or false? No more pain. True or false.

That's right.

So if there is some place somewhere in the universe where eternal souls are writhing in pain, it cannot be said there is no more pain. Every single. In fact, there is ongoing eternal.

Not every single Christian on planet earth needs to look at that verse and needs to pray about that verse.

That's right. Let's take it to the next level. Jesus was only on the cross for a very short time. He was in the tomb for a short time. He came out of the tomb. Now the question is, did Jesus pay the wages of sin?

Oh, this is so, so important.

If Jesus didn't pay the wages of sin, there is no plan of salvation. There is no redemption. The whole New Testament, the whole Bible falls flat on its face. So now think about this if the wages of sin is really eternal, unending, everlasting, conscious torment in a fiery place, that didn't happen to Jesus. Even if you say, as some do, that Jesus went down into the fiery bis for a time, well, even so, that's not eternal. So did Jesus pay the wages of sin or didn't he pay the wages of sin?

He did.

He did. And the wages of sin is not eternal conscious torment. And the fiery depths, say it with me, of sin, death.

And that's what we see Jesus experiencing on our behalf. That's right.

He died. Not just. And this is the part that Mel Gibson got wrong in the Passion of the Christ. I never saw it, but he got it wrong. It's the part that most of us get wrong. When we think about the cross. We think, oh, look at the pain.

Physical, physical.

Look at the physical. Look at the nails, look at the cross, look at the crown of thorns, look at the blood.

It's much deeper than that.

Gethsemane tells us it's more than that.

It's far more than that. It's this. It's separation. Sin causes separation from God.

My Father, my Father, why have thou forsaken me?

Why have you forsaken me? Jesus is not merely dying the physical death of the corruptible humanity. Jesus is dying the second death. He is experiencing true hell separation from his Father. Jesus truly paid the wages of sin.

Seems to me like the biblical picture of the final demise of the wicked, if really delved into and understood, vindicates the character of God. It beautifies the character of God. We can say God, even in the way that you deal with your enemies, you'll be just.

Praise God.

I mean, we don't regard any earthly government as a just government that inflicts torture.

Correct.

How could we possibly expect anything less of God? God is good, God is love. And therefore God will deal justly and mercifully, even with his enemies, even with those who are eternally lost.

Sa.