ok, i'll start at the top. Yes, i believe in a heaven, which is not a place, but where God is, which is everywhere. I can believe that is "literal"--even though it is not a place--while hell is not, because you cannot find hell as you understand it even in the Book, except as Tartarus, when referring to a "place" that fallen angels will end up, which cannot even be proven to exist from Scripture right now, but is postulated for the end of times, iow when time is over, or at least our time. The rest of those references to "hell" in the NT mistranslate Gehenna, and i again have to point out that you have begun from a conclusion, that being "there is a physical place called hell after my physical death that unaccepted people go to, and there is actual fire there." Which concept you did not arrive at on your own, it was given you, but nonetheless "everyone" more or less accepts this, disregarding much other Scripture that suggests otherwise; Scriptures which i have mentioned more than once now, but never get picked up for discussion.
So regardless of the heavy weight of public opinion, it is i who should be asking you where you got this notion, because there has been no case yet in which some loving Christian has quoted "hell" at me where i can actually read "hell," and you are welcome to try. Do we just pick and choose what we want? Apparently, yes, unless you can quote "hell" to me from Scripture, the Lexicon, which we already know that you cannot do. Never mind your "maybe we can disregard Christ, too" for now, ok, this just clouds the picture, but i could lay out a pretty clear concept of the Nehushtan worship that passes for "not disregarding Christ" among many or most that consider themselves "believers" right now--actually i have, more than once, and again, no one wishes to examine those verses, i have not been quoted once there.
"Yet we all die in this body." Boy, you said a mouthful there, and this can be taken more than one way. Physical death is irrelevant to God, and the walking dead, the spiritually dead, are a well developed theme in Scripture. See, i am assuming that you mean the second death, peoples' physical death, but we are called to "die" to ourselves way before that, aren't we. And i could make a case for people in defense mode, defending what they do not know, and belittling others and dehumanizing them in the process as not having died to themselves at all. So maybe you could clarify this., "yet we all die in this body," because i might be misinterpreting your meaning there.
I observe that those doing evil are not long hidden, and you reap what you sow. The wrongs done to me and everyone else are brought to light, and the evildoers are exposed and defrocked, exiled, and die in ignominy, are not celebrated, and become monster stories that we tell our children. You can surely reflect upon how someone in this position might wish they were dead, right? Much better to expose them to love and forgiveness, and heap "burning coals" (ahem) on their heads, imo. But this does not fit our desire for "punishment" much, now does it :)
you might see that exactly the opposite is true, and heaping burning coals on their heads is a great reflection of Gehenna, a place i can take you to and show you, while hell is actually the concept that has been made up, a chimera, out of your desire for punishment and your desire for eternal life, for saving your own soul, for becoming a god on your terms and not God's, however you want to put it. The battle is within you, who
desires punishment--for those you have deemed evil, of course; so that you can be the arbiter of this (the common "you" there, not you necessarily ok)--and maybe rejects burning coals, all while "knowing" about some other concept of hell that no one can prove, or even exegete. Gehenna is very real, ok, and so is Tartarus, for that matter; but these are spiritual states, not physical places, almost surely. And you are on solid ground as long as you postulate a future hell as Tartarus for evil spirits to reside. Beyond that, you are off the Res, and Scripture is being misinterpreted.
So show me this place then, from Scripture. We are reinventing the wheel here, and Drs of Theology can't do it, but you are welcome to give it a try.
May the offspring of evildoers not
be mentioned forever.
The offspring of evildoers
will never be remembered
.
2And if they ask you, ‘Where shall we go?’ tell them, ‘This is what the
Lord says:
“ ‘Those destined for death, to death;
those for the sword, to the sword;
those for starvation, to starvation;
those for captivity, to captivity.’
So, imagine some place in the "spirit world," after your physical death, in defiance of much Scripture, all you like. There is no fire of punishment in Hades, in Greek mythology. None. Should you choose to follow GM, anyway. It is misplacing Gehenna to some imagined future that is the sin, imo. To take just the first NT quote from BoL, above,
Matthew 25:46 "And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
it is possibly being forgotten that this is a
parable, a "the kingdom is LIKE" story, that begins with
14For it is just like a man going on a journey. He called his own slaves and turned over his possessions to them.
see, you are not ever going to actually get any "talents" per se to go and invest. And the Kingdom is coming here, to Earth, step by step. So in your desire to have it your way, Disney-Heaven in some imaginary afterlife has been created--and it is a dang good bidness, lemme tell you--when the Book assures us that you do not know where you come from, or where you are going. It is a perfectly good parable to relate to little children who are concerned with saving their souls, and do not too much care about the rest of creation, but this is just playing upon our fears, and the Kingdom is still coming here, to Earth.
Now obviously there is an Eternal Punishment, at least figuratively speaking, but for all you know Hitler is right next to Samuel, right now, having to bear what we say about him v what is said about Samuel, for eternity. Or maybe worse yet,
no one is blaming him, now, and he is surrounded by Love, with his memories, and i imagine they are rather hard to bear.
Just picture it; Samuel walks up to Hitler, who now knows what we do not, and he's like "Hey Hitler, don't take it too hard, you were duly elected; no one here looks down on you" or whatever--this would again be "burning coals" heaped upon his head, as he would be wallowing in shame, and having no Cover to avail him--an assumption--Love would be pretty hard to bear. Light is not pleasant, to those who choose darkness.
Understand I AM. Bible search all the instances of "today" in the Book; these are compelling, imo.
Concern yourself with today, and forget about tomorrow, your current, selfish preoccupation. You are going to reap what you are sowing, and if you spend your life sowing judgement after death to someone God put in front of you so that you might manifest Christ and the kingdom to them right now, then what have you done? You have justified not serving them; and you might even get agreement from your peers, and they might even "deserve it," but these are not the point--and these are not how your heart will be judged. Woe to those who lay burdens upon you that they cannot even pick up; and this is what your "hell" is. It is a great way to keep the subject on sin and death--Christians' favorite subjects--and away from today.
