One can certainly play word games with 'Hell'. The fact is that eternal punishment in the fire is a clear NT doctrine.
Matthew 25:41 (NKJV)
[sup]41 [/sup]Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:
There will be MANY in the eternal fire who do not believe in the eternal fire. Denying Hell doesn't save one from Hell.
Matthew 18:8 (NKJV)
[sup]8 [/sup]If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire.
You may be playing some sort of game. I'm not playing.
You're simply defending what you've been taught but you don't really know why it is and from where is comes from. Oh I was a lot like you at one time..
You are just going by a translation of a translation of the original text.
You are trusting a group of men who didn't speak the other languages well to determine what is true.
Just because King James men wrote it as everlasting or eternal does not make it so.
Just because some say KJV is the inspired word of God and the perfect English translation does not make it so either.
Strong's Greek Dictionary defines "aion" as follows: "an age, perpetuity, the world, a Messianic period, course, eternal, forever, evermore, without end." Strong's defines the adjective aionios as follows: "perpetual, eternal, forever, everlasting."
The above word definitions do not agree with each other. An age is not everlasting but about a thousands years.
There are about 7 ages from Adam til now it is believed. Remember the song "Rock of Ages"?
Christ is known as the Rock of the ages. That is not an eternity.
Eternal or ever lasting came from the Greek word Aionios
Dr. Mangey, a translator of the writings of Philo, says, "Philo did not use aionios to express endless duration."
The Complete Works of Falvius Josephus. Josephus obviously did not consider anionios to be "everlasting," seeing that he uses the word to represent the period of time between the giving of the law of Moses and that of his own writing [clearly not an eternity]. He also assigns aionios to the period of imprisonment of the tyrant John by the Romans [clearly he was not imprisoned for an eternity], and also for the period during which Herod’s temple stood [since Herod’s temple was not even standing at the time Josephus wrote, it too proves that Josephus did not mean ‘eternity’ when he wrote ‘aionios’].
Saint Gregory of Nyssa speaks of anionios diastema, "an eonian interval." How many intervals do you know of that are "endless" or "eternal?"
Saint Chrysostum, in his homily on Eph. 2:1-3, says that, "Satan’s kingdom is aeonian; that is, it will cease with the present world."
Saint Justin Martyr, in the Apol. (p. 57), used the word aionios repeadedly: aionion kolasin…all ouchi chiliontaete periodon, "eonian chastening but a period, not a thousand years," or as some translate this clause "but a period of a thousand years only." Hence, to Justin Martyr, aionios was certainly not "endless."
Believing in a translation of a translation that may have deviated from the original written word does not make it true either.
Hell was a Saxon word never spoken by Christ. So why push the Hellfire doctrine if Christ never said the word?
Because that nice preacher man you know tells you so? Christ used the word Gehenna which was a valley heading south of the city of David and east towards the Lake of Fire or Dead Sea.
That's a whole different concept huh?
Why not tell people they are going to burn in the Gehenna Valley forever or for an age even?
I can tell you right now and this very moment that there is no eternal fire burning in the Gehenna Valley. No all is calm and it's beautiful there now.
The worms still living there but the fires have all died out now.
It was once a smoldering garbage dump where the fires continued day and night.
The words that most of our Bibles have translated "eternal", "forever", and "everlasting" are: "aion" (#165) and the adjective "aionios" (# 166).
Both mean an age, or age-time, or age during . the duration of which is not specified and are used with those definitions in all other writings in Greek including Josephus, Philo, Plato, etc.
Col 1:26 Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:
Same word Aion used as Ages and it couldn't be used as Forever, properly anyway..
Several other times it is used as Age.
We all need to become Bereans and Prove ALL things.
We are to study to show ourselves approved.
People need to stop being lazy and just stating what they believe based on what they've been taught for it gives us all a bad name among the non-beleivers.
Rom 5:6 .....
Messiah died for the ungodly:
Shlama w'burkate
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