Yes, everyone who is not in God’s “book of life” will perish in Gehenna.
Matthew 10:28....
“And do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Ge·henʹna.”
Most people know the first part of this scripture, like they do with John 3:16, but what is in the second part, that is not often mentioned.
What does it say? That God can “destroy” body and soul in Gehenna, which is not hell. It is a place called “the second death”....called that for a reason. It is a death from which no one is resurrected....unlike the first kind of death, inherited from Adam, it is eternal death which is contrasted with eternal life. No one ever comes out of that place where they are “destroyed”.
John 3:16
“For God loved the world so much that he gave his only-begotten Son, so that everyone exercising faith in him might not be destroyed but have everlasting life.”
Those exercising faith in the son of God, will gain life, but those we don’t will not go to hell, but will “perish”....which means that they will be destroyed.
No, it is reference to the original Gehenna....Jerusalem’s rubbish dump, where the maggots had a never ending supply of food in that place. The fires were kept burning by the addition of brimstone. It was a symbolism, not an actual place.
The original Valley of Hinnom was used by apostate Israel to sacrifice their children in the fire to Molech...God’s response to that....complete disgust!
Jeremiah 7:21...
“They have built the high places of Toʹpheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinʹnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, something that I had not commanded and that had never even come into my heart.’”
If God stopped this practice because it would never occur to him to command such a thing, then why would he do that himself to his own children?
This is why Jesus said we had to get to “know the only true God and the one whom he sent, Jesus Christ”...(John 17:3)....if you believe that God would send souls to a torture chamber for all eternity, then you do not know him at all.
Who is “him”? I do not believe that “God” became a mere human because the Bible does not ever say that. I believe that God sent his “only begotten son” to become, not a mere human but a perfect sinless human who could redeem mankind by sacrificing his life for us. His sacrifice cancels out our sin. God never needed to leave heaven to rescue mankind. His willing servant, Jesus was more than willing to do whatever was necessary to undo all the damage caused by Satan and the ones he managed to deceived.
Now that right there, is all messed up. There are no “souls” in heaven....show me a single scripture that says so. Jesus’ in his pre-human existence was never a “soul”...he was a “spirit” which is something completely different according to the meaning of the original language words.
Jesus existed as a spirit being in heaven “with” his Father before Abraham was even born.
Being human did not automatically make Jesus sinful....was Adam sinful when God created him? No! Disobedience is what introduced sin and death.
I have no desire to go to heaven, because God never intended for any human to go to heaven, originally. He put us here on earth to live forever. We fear death because it was never meant to happen.
Adam’s sin was what caused death....so Jesus came as a perfect sinless human to buy back what Adam lost. The Kingdom of God with Christ as King, was for the purpose of reconciling sinful humans back with their God and Creator. Only those taken into the new covenant will go to heaven, whist the rest of us, including all who are resurrected, will slowly discard our sinful state and at the end of the 1000 year rule of God’s kingdom, will stand sinless for one final test. (Revelation 20:1-3)
We are to serve God....not the other way around. Jesus served his God and also served the interests of his disciples. God serves no one....that is why he is God.
We did no such thing....Adam sinned, we did not, that is why our inheritance is not fair, and why God sent Jesus to redeem us out of that situation. We have found ourselves in sinful flesh through no fault on our part. Sin can lead us into activities that will cause God to reject us. But he made his word available to those who wanted to stay in God’s favour, despite their sinful state, because he tells how not to sin. It’s also why God provided Jesus as a “mediator” so that communication with our God is still possible in spite of our sinful imperfections.
What????? No idea what that means....
The insinuation is that dead people are not really dead.....that some living, conscious part of them leaves to go somewhere else......and also that all Christians can go to heaven....neither of those things are true.....yet almost all of Christendom teaches that this is the truth.
The Bible does not teach about 95% of what most “Christians” today, believe. The “weeds” of Jesus parable have indeed done their job, substituting false beliefs that have distorted who God is, and why Jesus even came to offer his life. Any wonder there is such confusion!
When I was part of that confusion, I couldn’t understand any of it because it made no sense.....now that I have studied the Bible for myself, everything has an answer, and a place in the gigantic jigsaw puzzle we call this life. Now I understand where everything belongs. And it’s really quite simple, not complicated at all.....but Christendom has people believing that you need a degree in theology to understand it all....not so. The truth is so simple a child can understand it.
