Hi Randy, It sounds to me like the wicked/unrighteous will be suffering eternally because if they were instantly burned up and removed forever, they wouldn't have the time to, weep/cry or be knashing their teeth, which also implies to be in the flesh from these two descriptions, in order to weep and knash teeth, so I think you're right in the last line that Hell will be like living a "death" sentence in unhappy conditions like the sufferings in this world, various and different kinds of suffering in this world, and they will also have a spiritual thirst or feeling of being deprived because of their lost state (having been given a chance to repent of sin in the past but not anymore) since it will be meaningless and there will be no blessings in Hell apart from God. I also think that Hell will be like a suffering that is enough to make one weep and knash their teeth. That's the extent that I know. I believe in that death still exists but it is under Jesus' feet because I believe God has a pattern: day and night; light and darkness; death and life; eternal death vs eternal life; good and evil; righteous and unrighteous; God and Satan (if there's a "good" God then there has to be an "evil/bad" Satan) like the Law of Opposites, like the even you can say Yin/Yang balance/forces.
I agree with most of what you say. I don't, however, think Satan is the opposite of God--he is just an "insect" to God.
But I hear ya. Sounds like we feel the same way about much of this? We believe people exist eternally in a place called "Eternal Punishment." They are completely removed from this world, but are given new physical bodies in which they can experience sadness and regret?
In my view, the Lost are truly cast into a Lake of Fire forever. But this simply means they pass out of God's Kingdom and into an area of some kind called "Outer Darkness." There is eternal torment, but not eternal "torture." They are separate from God's Kingdom forever, which is why it is called "Eternal Death."
I see the Lake of Fire more as a portal than an eternal furnace. When it is said that people are cast into the Lake of Fire forever it just means that they pass through the portal never more to return. They are in a sense "burned up."
But staying in a furnace to be on fire forever isn't something I would wish on a cockroach! So I don't think Gehenna, a trash dump, was ever intended to convey the sense of being on fire forever, or being tortured as such forever. It was merely a means of disposing of something no longer wanted in the present world. In the case of the Lost, they are being disposed of from God's New World *forever!* Hence, they are thrown into the Lake of Fire *forever,* not to be tortured but to be removed.
Where the Lost go after passing through this "portal" I don't claim to know. The beggar and Lazarus clearly saw each other in Jesus' description, and they were both on land. But one was comforted and the other was thirsty. And there was a great unpassable chasm between them.
And so, I believe God still remains loving even towards His enemies, and will fit them appropriately onto some piece of earth where they can carry out jobs they were created to do, to bring glory to their Creator. That's why I think it will be much like the current earth, because we are inundated with people who do not know God or reject Him. It can be very unhappy here!
As I said, there's a lot of speculation on it because God doesn't seem to want to allow us to wade too deeply into it--it's truly SAD!
