Comments on AND NOW FOR A THIRD VIEW ON HELL

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hazel

posted by Ariala on May 10, 2009 at 7:20 AM | link to this | reply

Re: hazel, I do believe the words of Jesus when He told Nicodemus that one

posted by hazel_st_cricket on May 10, 2009 at 7:19 AM | link to this | reply

Xeno, I understand...to me hell is not only the burning, but the complete

separation from God for eternity...that, to me is the worst consquence of it all.

posted by Ariala on May 10, 2009 at 7:06 AM | link to this | reply

hazel, I do believe the words of Jesus when He told Nicodemus that one

must be "born again."  Simply defined, we must be born to new life and a spiritual beginning in Christ.  As for hell?  I leave that up to the fair judge...me?  I'd let everyone in. Go figure. LOL 

posted by Ariala on May 10, 2009 at 7:04 AM | link to this | reply

thanks for the view

It is more consistent with Bible passages than the view accepted by many.

I have to explain.

I didn't say there isn't a hell -- it's just the type of Hell -- mine is what I have discovered -- a purging place, to paraphrase the Apostle Paul, "A man's works shall be tested (in the fire), whether they be solid stone, or burnable chaff, but the individual shall be saved."

That defines my perception.

posted by Xeno-x on May 10, 2009 at 6:50 AM | link to this | reply

Ariala,

You mean to tell me you don't have to be "born again" to escape eternal damnation in the bottonless pit of Hell...   

posted by hazel_st_cricket on May 10, 2009 at 6:45 AM | link to this | reply

OTA, LOL, yes, I'm sure there are at least that many LOL...I wanted to

offer the third view on Blogit as I think I've only seen two - that there is a hell and that there isn't a hell...I might have missed the others LOL

Thanks for reading it and for reading me...it's good to consider the various perspectives.   

posted by Ariala on May 10, 2009 at 6:18 AM | link to this | reply

Ariala, This is a very interesting perspective. I am reading it, but am not quite finshed. I marked it in my favorites so I can finish it later. I was thinking as I went.. there are probably at least 14 views of hell ..lol.. ok maybe more..~Peace

posted by OTA. on May 10, 2009 at 6:15 AM | link to this | reply

Yes, I saw your other comment, but I totally disagree with your views. We

don't agree on the fundamentals of the soul (which is the breath of God...the body + the breath = soul).  Other definitions come from Paganism concerning the soul. The soul is not immortal.  Only God has immortality the Bible says and He ONLY gives immortality at the end.  Don't worry, you believe what most other religions and Christians believe...but not all of us believe that. Jesus called death "a sleep."  I believe when we die we are asleep until the resurrection and Christ's return (1 Thes. 4:16, 17).  Christ did take some with Him at His resurrection, but most await the coming of the Lord in their graves (body and spirit)...the soul idea comes directly from Hinduism and Paganism, not Bible teaching...but again, I know what most Baptists and others teach, so we will just have to agree to disagree. Thanks!

posted by Ariala on May 10, 2009 at 6:04 AM | link to this | reply

We will have to agree to disagree...there are way too many verses that

point to immortality ONLY being given to those who believe in God, not to the wicked.   God is love, not a sadist.  Forever and ever, throughout the Scriptures (if you read the study) ALWAYS means "until it is over." 

Thanks for reading...I just wanted to make sure others knew that there was yet a third view on this subject.

No, I'm not a mom, unless having three cats counts?  Happy Mother's Day to you, too.

posted by Ariala on May 10, 2009 at 5:59 AM | link to this | reply

Re: Re: The SOUL that sinneth IT SHALL DIE...a soul doesn't burn forever, sorry,

Oh yes, and...the soul will indeed return to God where the soul will be judged and sentenced to one place or the other. OK, I'm really running out now, I'll be back later. I left another comment as well, which Im sure you'll see.

posted by onwingsoflove on May 10, 2009 at 5:55 AM | link to this | reply

Re: The SOUL that sinneth IT SHALL DIE...a soul doesn't burn forever, sorry,

Im sorry Ariala, but I still disagree,

One will live forever somewhere, either in Heaven or in Hell, period. "THE WORM DIETH NOT".

And Saints in Heaven will not be sad, the Scriptures says that "ALL TEARS ARE WIPED AWAY". Ill put it like this, you wouldn't be sad over the baby you never had would you? Well the same is in Heaven. You see, what brings one to Christ is a SPIRITUAL REBIRTH. If a person is NEVER born into the family of God, then there is no spiritual birth there, and NO ONE in Heaven will miss the "child never born".

Ill comment more on this later, I'm going to church and then to spend time with my Mother. If you are a Mother then I say "HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO YOU!"

posted by onwingsoflove on May 10, 2009 at 5:53 AM | link to this | reply

And as for the soul:

2   The Soul Can Die

 

     God said, through the prophet, “Behold, all souls are mine: as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). This firmly establishes that the soul is definitely not immortal by nature, or it could not experience death. Since the word “immortal” means “not subject to death,” there could be no question of death for a soul possessing an innate immortality. At least ten other verses affirm exactly the same thing: the soul is not naturally immortal.
     Jesus, the great Master Teacher, declared that the soul could die, in Matthew 10:28. “And fear not them which kill the body ... but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” By this clear statement, Christ places the matter beyond all question. The soul can die and will die in the fires of hell. Therefore, it cannot be immortal by nature.
     This is shocking to a lot of people. The traditional position has been exactly the opposite of this. How upsetting it is to learn that in all the 1700 biblical occurrences of the words “soul” and “spirit” not once are they referred to as being immortal or undying.
     Where, then, did the doctrine come from? Most of us have heard about the “soul that never dies” from our earliest years of childhood. One thing is certain: it did not originate in the Scriptures. The truth is that it came directly from pagan tradition and mythology. The ancient Chinese ancestor-worship was rooted in the belief that the soul did not die. Egyptian pyramid hieroglyphics reveal that the doctrine of a naturally immortal soul was basic to their worship of the sun god. In India, where I lived for years, the Hindus believe strongly in reincarnation and transmi- gration of the soul. Darkest African voodoo ceremonies are built around the concept of an undying soul.
     There is not one text that supports such a teaching in the Christian Bible; nevertheless, the Word does tell us how the doctrine got started and who preached the first sermon on the subject. Read Genesis 3:1-4, “Now the serpent was more subtile than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die.”
     Please notice that somebody disagreed with God. The Creator had declared that sin would bring death, but Satan said the opposite, “You will not really die.” That was the first great-granddaddy lie that was ever told, and the one who told it has been trying to uphold it ever since. That original sermon on natural immortality has been repeated many times through the years, often by preachers and theologians who ought to know better. A few years ago the Reader’s Digest featured an article entitled “There Is No Death,” by one of America’s most popular Protestant ministers. The great preacher said exactly the same thing that the great deceiver said to Eve, “You don’t really die at all. It may seem like death, but you really keep on living and know more afterward than you did before.”
     Can that doctrine be dangerous? Indeed, it involves much more than just promulgating a false statement. The implications of this satanic teaching are far-reaching and eternal in consequence. Millions will be lost because they do not understand the truth about the nature of man. Deception on this point opens a door which can flood the life with darkness and actual demon control. The only protection we will ever have against this insidious danger is to know the truth about death and the soul.

 

3   The Spirit Returns to God

 

     The clearest and most concise inspired definition of death was written by Solomon, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
     Immediately we are struck by the word “return.” After death everything seems to go back from whence it came. The dust returns to the earth from which it was taken, and the spirit returns to God who gave it. Death is just the opposite of creation.
     It is easy for us to picture the process of bodily decay and decomposition. We understand very well that the physical components of the body are the very same as the earth itself. When it is buried, the body reverts to the chemical elements of the ground from which the Creator took it in the beginning.
     But what about the spirit which goes back to God? That is not so easy to understand. There is not a man in the world who can explain it with human wisdom. Nevertheless, many verses in the Bible throw light on this crucial point. James wrote, “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also” (James 2:26). The word “spirit” has a marginal reference which reads, “or breath.” This is very important. The actual root word in the Greek is “pneuma,” a word which means “breath” or “air.” We take our English word “pneumonia” from pneuma because it is a disease of the lungs, or of breathing. We have pneumatic tires, also derived from pneuma, because they have air in them. But that same Greek word “pneuma” also has another meaning. It means “spirit.” For example, the Greek term for “Holy Spirit” is “Hagios pneumatos,” “Holy Breath” or “Holy Spirit.”
     This brings us to a very interesting conclusion. The words “breath” and “spirit” are often used interchangeably in the Bible. Job said, “All the while my breath is in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils” (Job 27:3). Now, it doesn’t take a high degree of intelligence to know that Job was describing the same thing by the words “breath” and “spirit” Man has only breath in his nostrils. In fact, that is what God breathed into man’s nostrils at the time of creation. “And 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 soul” (Genesis 2:7).
     Now the picture begins to clear up. When Solomon described the spirit returning to God, he had to be referring to the breath, because that was what God gave in the beginning, and therefore, it was the only thing that could now “return” to the One who gave it. The marginal note for Genesis 7:22 refers to the breath of life as “the breath of the spirit of life.”
     The psalmist describes death in these words, “Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created” (Psalm 104:29, 30). Here the order is reversed, and their breath returns to God at death. Solomon said the spirit returns. Here God gives the spirit to create, but Genesis says He gave the breath to create. It only makes sense when we understand that the two words are used interchangeably and mean the same thing.
     Please take note that this “spirit of life” is not necessarily the same as the Holy Spirit, neither is the “breath of life” the same as the regular air we breathe. This breath or spirit is the special, life-giving power of God which makes the body a functioning organism. Read Genesis 2:7 again, and try to visualize the act of creation. “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” We have no difficulty with this. We can see that dead body, perfectly formed and containing the very elements necessary for life. But there was no life. The heart wasn’t beating. The blood was there, but it wasn’t flowing. The brain was there, but it wasn’t thinking.
     Then God added one more thing to the body He had made. He “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Do not miss the significance of these words—they are often misconstrued. God did not put a soul into the body. He added only one thing—breath or spirit. Then, as a result of the body and breath uniting, man BECAME a soul.
     Millions have accepted the false, traditional view that God put a soul into the body to create man. This is based entirely upon the common, erroneous doctrine of all non-Christian religions. In the Bible, except in poetical or allegorical usage, the soul does not go in and out of the body; neither does it have an independent existence outside of the body. Because the Greek word “psuche,” meaning “life,” has sometimes been translated as “soul” in our King James Version, some have drawn wrong conclusions; but only because they apply a false definition to the word “soul.” Millions have been taught that the soul possesses a natural immortality, and every time they read or hear the word they assume something that is totally false and unbiblical. Not even one time in the Bible is the soul referred to as being immortal or undying.
     The fact is, the soul is the conscious life which resulted when God added the breath or spirit to the body. A simple illustration will help us see this truth more clearly. Let us liken the body to a light bulb. The electric current flowing into that bulb represents the breath of life which God put into the body, and the light itself will represent the soul which man became after the breath joined the body. As we look at the shining light we see a perfect representation of the completed creation. Now we press the button and turn the light off. What has happened? The current has left the bulb, just as the breath leaves the body at death. Now where is the light? Did it go up into the electric socket? No, it simply ceased to exist when the current separated from the bulb. Then let us ask, where is the soul when the breath separates from the body? There simply is no soul until, in the resurrection, God restores the breath of life to the body.
     That should not sound so strange to us, now that we have discovered how everything “returns” at death to the way it was before. Before creation, man did not exist in some disembodied form. There was no personality, no conscious emotions before God added the breath to the body. At that moment man “became a living soul.” If the soul came to be as a result of that union, when does the soul cease to be? Surely as a result of the breaking of that union.
     Suppose we have two things before us: boards and nails. We take a hammer and drive the nails into the boards, making a box. Now we have three things instead of two; we have boards, nails and a box. Later, we carefully pull out the nails and lay them down beside the boards. Again, we have only two things before us: boards and nails. What happened to the box? There is no box, because it requires the two things together to cause it to be.
     In the same way God started with two things, the body and the spirit. When He put them together, the soul “became”—it came into being, it began to exist. At death, the wise man tells us, the spirit returns to God, and the body returns to dust. And nowhere in the Bible are we told that any soul survives the body, or continues to exist without a body. The soul, or the life, has no existence without the power of God residing in the body. At death that power is removed; it returns to God; and the state of that man is exactly what it was before the breath joined the body. That means no life, no consciousness, and no personality.
     Even animals are referred to as souls in the Bible, because they have the same power from God to make them live (Revelation 16:3). The wise man wrote, “For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other, yea, they have all one breath; ... All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again” (Ecclesiastes 3:19, 20). This does not mean, of course, that man and animals have the same ultimate end. There will be a resurrection and judgment for God’s moral creatures, but life comes only from God, whether it be human or animal. And that life is often referred to in the Bible as the soul. http://www.amazingfacts.org/FreeStuff/OnlineLibrary/tabid/106/ctl/ViewMedia/mid/447/IID/31/LNG/en/SC/R/Default.aspx?7=Spirits-of-the-Dead-Do-They-Speak-and-Hear?

posted by Ariala on May 10, 2009 at 5:22 AM | link to this | reply

The SOUL that sinneth IT SHALL DIE...a soul doesn't burn forever, sorry,

bad theology.  What is forever is the consequences.  God did NOT give immortal life/death to those who do not believe and accept Him...HE ONLY gave immortal life to those who believe.  It's in Romans and throughout the Bible. You apparently didn't read the study.  I encourage you to. 

The consequences of hell are FOREVER, not the burning...Heaven would not be Heaven if you knew your loved one was on the other side or wherever, burning forever...God is love and hell fire will BURN UP the wicked. (Malachi says they will be ashes.)

Please read the study before making up your mind. It is a Biblical view on hell, not a view that came from Plato, a man.

posted by Ariala on May 10, 2009 at 5:16 AM | link to this | reply

The sinners who go to Hell will be paying an eternal debt for their sin. "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord". Their fleshly body will die, but their soul will not. You said that someone couldn't burn forever without dying, but "With God all things are possible". The Bible clearly states that Hell is forever, and on the other side, Heaven is forever as well.

posted by onwingsoflove on May 10, 2009 at 5:09 AM | link to this | reply