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Post by Josh on Aug 6, 2015 8:22:08 GMT -8
1 Corinthians 13:7-8a It [love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Reading through the "love chapter" today it struck me that these are not just descriptors of how we, as Christ-followers, should love. Ultimately, because God is love and love is defined by God's nature itself, these words must apply to Him as well, in fact these definitions must emanate from His very nature. And if God always protects (without ceasing), always hopes (is always looking forward with the best end in mind), always perseveres or fails (will not stop loving others or fail in that endeavor), then couldn't this be seen as a potential evidence that Hell must be remedial and not eternal, conscious torment? |
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Post by jaybee on Aug 7, 2015 9:26:22 GMT -8
This would perhaps be why the Calvinists get around the issue by claiming God does not love everybody. He literally hates all who go to hell. This means that God's love can never fail, and he can still burn people for eternity...
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Post by asaph on Aug 7, 2015 18:48:22 GMT -8
1 Corinthians 13:7-8a It [love] always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
Reading through the "love chapter" today it struck me that these are not just descriptors of how we, as Christ-followers, should love. Ultimately, because God is love and love is defined by God's nature itself, these words must apply to Him as well, in fact these definitions must emanate from His very nature. And if God always protects (without ceasing), always hopes (is always looking forward with the best end in mind), always perseveres or fails (will not stop loving others or fail in that endeavor), then couldn't this be seen as a potential evidence that Hell must be remedial and not eternal, conscious torment? If this is true why doesn't God just convert anybody whether they chose to repent or not? Why not stop Adam in the beginning? Why not stop Lucifer before all the trouble developed? Shall Lucifer be saved? Shall the angels that rebelled with him? Eternal fire is prepared for them. I do not believe there is a "hell" as is prominently taught, as I've mentioned elsewhere, anyway. So your ultimate point is moot to me. The fire is meant to purge and purify sin from the earth. Those who cling to sin shall be burned up with the earth, to ashes. God saves those who choose to be saved from the penalty and power of sin. |
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Post by Josh on Aug 10, 2015 8:30:17 GMT -8
The answer to the first set of questions would be that God values free will; it is necessary for love to truly and fully be experienced, which I think you agree with, correct?
The answer to the second set of questions, from the perspective of some Christians who hold to ultimate redemption, would be yes, even for satan, who is said to burn for ages upon ages, not necessarily "eternally".
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Post by asaph on Aug 22, 2015 14:07:40 GMT -8
Mat 25:41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
Mat 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
Eze 28:18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
Eze 28:19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
Mal 4:1 For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root ;
[Satan] nor branch [followers].
Rev 20:7 And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Rev 20:8 And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the sea.
Rev 20:9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured [consumed] them.
A lot more can be added.
Looks to me like Satan is history at some point, eternally dead and gone; along with his rebellious angles and unrepentant mankind.
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Post by jaybee on Aug 24, 2015 15:29:20 GMT -8
The Ezekiel passage is a punishment against a king, and by proxy his kingdom - Tyre. They were a trade city, thus the sin in trafficking. Sure enough, they were destroyed on the earth, never to exist again. It does not speak to their eternal state.
Malachi plainly says his entire prophecy is directed at Israel specifically. Throughout the book this continues to be plain. Therefore, the judgment cannot be exegetically applied beyond that. Neither root nor branch (related to Israel will survive).
John the Baptist, the Elijah of Malachi, carried continues Malachi's root and tree idea with his warning in the "viper" Pharisees in Matthew 3. The continuity of language continues its context - the Jews. Not being applied beyond that people group.
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Post by asaph on Aug 24, 2015 19:44:21 GMT -8
Eze 28:11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 28:12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
Eze 28:13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
Eze 28:14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
Eze 28:15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
Eze 28:16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
Eze 28:17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
Eze 28:18 Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
Eze 28:19 All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.
There has never been a king on the planet that can meet the description here. Lucifer is the "King of Tyrus" in the passage, the one responsible for all corruption and trafficking.
Albert Barnes:
Malachi 4:1
For, behold, the day cometh, which shall burn as an oven - He had declared the great severance of the God-fearing and the God-blaspheming, those who served and those who did not serve God; the righteous and the wicked; now he declares the way and time of the severance, the Day of Judgment. Daniel had described the fire of that day, Dan_7:9-10, “The throne (of the Ancient of days) was a fiery flame; his wheels a burning fire: a fiery stream issued and came forth from Him: the judgment was set and the books were opened.” Fire is ever spoken of, as accompanying the judgment Psa_50:3. “Our God shall come, and shall not keep silence, a fire shall devour before Him Isa_66:15-16. Behold the Lord will come with fire: for by fire and by the sword will the Lord plead with all flesh: 1Co_3:13 every man’s work shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire: and the fire shall try every man’s work, of what sort it is.” Peter tells us that fire will be of this burning world; 2Pe_3:7-10. “the heavens and the earth which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of’ ungodly men; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.”
The oven, or furnace, pictures the intensity of the heat, which is white from its intensity, and darts forth, fiercely, shooting up like a living creature, and destroying life, as the flame of the fire of Nebuchadnezzars Dan_3:22 “burning fiery furnace slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.” The whole world shall be one burning furnace.
Matthew Henry:
Malachi 4:1-3
The great and terrible day of the Lord is here prophesied of. This, like the pillar of cloud and fire, shall have a dark side turned towards the Egyptians that fight against God, and a bright side towards the faithful Israelites that follow him: The day cometh, that is, the Lord cometh, the day of the Lord; and it has reference both to the first and to the second coming of Jesus Christ; the day of both was fixed, and should answer the character here given of it.
I. In both Christ is a consuming fire to those that rebel against him. The day of his coming shall burn as an oven; it shall be a day of wrath, of fiery indignation. This was foretold concerning the Messiah, Psa_21:9, Thy hand shall find out all thy enemies, and shall make them as a fiery oven in the time of thy anger. It will be a day of terror and destruction like the burning of a city, or rather of a wood, the trees whereof are withered and dried, for to that the allusion seems to be, as Isa_10:17, Isa_10:18, The light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame, and it shall consume the glory of his forest and of his fruitful field. Now observe here, 1. Who shall be fuel to this fire - all the proud in heart, whose words have been stout against God, and their necks stiff and unapt to yield to the yoke of his commandments (all those that in the pride of their countenances will not seek after God, nor submit to the grace and government of Jesus Christ - all that proudly say they will not have Christ to reign over them), and all those that do wickedly in their affections and conversations, that wilfully persist in sin, in contempt of and contradiction to the law of God; they are such as do wickedly against the covenant, as another prophet had lately expressed it, Dan_11:32. God, that has perfect knowledge of every one's character, knows who are the proud, and of every one's actions, knows who they are that do wickedly; and they shall be as stubble to this fire; they shall be consumed by it, easily consumed, utterly consumed, and it is wholly owing to themselves that they shall be so, for they make themselves stubble, that is, combustible matter, to this fire. If they were not stubble, it would not burn them; for the fire will be to every man according as he and his works are found; if they be wood, hay, and stubble, they will be consumed; but if they be gold, solver, and precious stones, they will abide the fire and be purified by it, 1Co_3:13-15. Those that by their unbelief oppose Christ thereby set themselves as briers and thorns before a devouring fire, Isa_27:4, Isa_27:5. 2. What shall be the force and what the fruit of this fire: The day that cometh shall burn them up, shall both terrify and ruin them, and shall leave them neither root nor branch, neither son nor nephew (so the Chaldee paraphrase): neither they nor their posterity shall be spared; they shall be wholly extirpated and cut off. Who knows the power of God's anger? The proud and those that do wickedly will not fear it, but they shall be made to feel it. Where are those now that called the proud happy, when thus they are made completely miserable, when there remains no branch of their happiness to be enjoyed for the present, nor any root of it out of which it might again spring up? Now this was fulfilled, (1.) When Christ, in his doctrine, spoke terror and condemnation to the proud Pharisees and the other Jews that did wickedly, when he sent that fire on the earth which burnt up the chaff of the traditions of the elders and the corrupt glosses they had put upon the law of God. (2.) When Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans, and the nation of the Jews, as a nation, quite blotted out from under heaven, and neither root nor branch left them. This seems to be principally intended here; our Saviour says that those should be the days of vengeance, when all the things that were written to that purport should be fulfilled, Luk_21:22. Then the unbelieving Jews were as stubble to the devouring fire of God's judgments, which gathered together to them as the eagles to the carcase. (3.) It is certainly applicable, and is to be applied, to the day of judgment, to the particular judgment at death (some of the Jewish doctors refer it the punishment that seizes on the souls of the wicked immediately after they go out of the body), but especially to the general judgment, at the end of time, when Christ shall be revealed in flaming fire, to execute judgment on the proud, and all that do wickedly. The whole world shall then burn as an oven, and all the children of this world, that set their hearts upon it and choose their portion in it, shall take their ruin with it, and the fire then kindled shall never be quenched.
Jameison, Faussett, and Brown:
Malachi 4:1
Mal_4:1-6. God’s coming judgment: triumph of the godly: Return to the law the best preparation for Jehovah’s coming: Elijah’s preparatory mission of reformation.
the day cometh ... burn — (Mal_3:2; 2Pe_3:7). Primarily is meant the judgment coming on Jerusalem; but as this will not exhaust the meaning, without supposing what is inadmissible in Scripture - exaggeration - the final and full accomplishment, of which the former was the earnest, is the day of general judgment. This principle of interpretation is not double, but successive fulfillment. The language is abrupt, “Behold, the day cometh! It burns like a furnace.” The abruptness imparts terrible reality to the picture, as if it suddenly burst on the prophet’s view.
all the proud — in opposition to the cavil above (Mal_3:15), “now we call the proud (haughty despisers of God) happy.”
stubble — (Oba_1:18; Mat_3:12). As Canaan, the inheritance of the Israelites, was prepared for their possession by purging out the heathen, so judgment on the apostates shall usher in the entrance of the saints upon the Lord’s inheritance, of which Canaan is the type - not heaven, but earth to its utmost bounds (Psa_2:8) purged of all things that offend (Mat_13:41), which are to be “gathered out of His kingdom,” the scene of the judgment being that also of the kingdom. The present dispensation is a spiritual kingdom, parenthetical between the Jews’ literal kingdom and its antitype, the coming literal kingdom of the Lord Jesus.
neither root nor branch — proverbial for utter destruction (Amo_2:9).
Keil and Delitzsch:
Malachi 4:1-3
This admonition to the ungodly is explained in Mal_4:1. by a picture of the separation which will be effected by the day of judgment. Mal_4:1. “For behold the day cometh burning like a furnace, and all the proud and every doer of wickedness become stubble, and the coming day will burn them, saith Jehovah of hosts, so that it will not leave them root or branch. Mal_4:2. But to you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness will rise and healing in its wings, and ye will go out and skip like stalled calves, Mal_4:3. And will tread down the ungodly, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I create, saith Jehovah of hosts.” The day of judgment will be to the ungodly like a burning furnace. “A fire burns more fiercely in a furnace than in the open air” (Hengstenberg). The ungodly will then resemble the stubble which the fire consumes (cf. Isa_5:24; Zep_1:18; Oba_1:18, etc.). זֵדִים and עֹשֵׂה רִשְׁעָה point back to Mal_3:15. Those who are called blessed by the murmuring nation will be consumed by the fire, as stubble is burned up, and indeed all who do wickedness, and therefore the murmurers themselves. אֲשֶׁר before לֹא יֲעַזִב is a conjunction, quod; and the subject is not Jehovah, but the coming day. The figure “root and branch” is borrowed from a tree - the tree is the ungodly mass of the people (cf. Amo_2:9) - and denotes total destruction, so that nothing will be left of them.
I might not agree with these venerable commentators on everything but, here, I do. The application of the prophesy is twofold, as are many OT prophecies. Especially in this case, when so many OT passages speak clearly of the utter destruction of the lost by fire.
Tied in together with all passages speaking of the scene, the fact is the righteous SHALL tread upon the ashes of the first world and its lost inhabitants when the Creator, the great Gardener, recreates this planet from the ashes of its final demise.
Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
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Post by jaybee on Aug 25, 2015 12:03:05 GMT -8
First, on Ezekiel: Ezekiel 31:3 "Consider Assyria, a cedar in Lebanon" - with branches, a top in the clouds, grown tall by spring water, birds nesting in its branches, envied by the other trees in Eden.
This language cannot literally apply to a city, just as the language relating to the king of Tyre is symbolic. Its called prophetic language.
There is a lot of such language in the Bible, yet you don't look for Daniel's beasts to be literal, you don't look for a literal Revelation dragon, why do you look for this single passage to have to be literal when there is no support for such a reading? In fact, the real support contextually as proven by the language related to Assyria is for a nonliteral reading.
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Post by jaybee on Aug 25, 2015 12:35:08 GMT -8
As for Malachi: It is sad that even renown commentators skip over proper exegesis. Certainly God can be seen as a consuming fire, and can consume any ungodly at anytime. However, Malachi is plainly not about any ungodly at any time.
The entire premise of the book is referring to Israel - Malachi 1:1. Israel being the only people during that time who had the temple of God - Malachi 1:10. The ones who had the priests of Levi - Malachi 2:1, 4. These people being addressed in Malachi are the sons of Jacob who are under the OT commandments and should be bringing food into the temple - Malachi 3:6, 7, 10. The specific people who will receive Elijah again (JtB) - Malachi 4:5.
But wait! In the middle of this, between addressing Israel in Malachi 3 and 4:4 on, somehow it is determined without support that the event of 4:1-3 somehow is not Israel specific. In no reasonable sense does this remotely work unless we are interested in proof-texting and piecemealing our theology to make it fit what we want to believe.
I am not saying there will not be a future day of wrath. For the ungodly ISIS, for the ungodly America, and for any other ungodly at any point in time. However, what I am saying is that THIS passage cannot be coherently made to apply to any such day.
It saddens me that such respected commentators as you cite make such egregious error. No independent reading of scripture apart from adulteration by preconceived notions would find such meaning as they put forth about this passage.
People just don't want to face what the implications of removing a single proof-text from their theological house of cards would do to the remaining structure - it would quickly begin to fall flat.
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Post by asaph on Aug 28, 2015 18:10:22 GMT -8
I believe Gen. 8:21 should be linked to 9:11 -
And I will establish my covenant with you; neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
Not by a flood but, by fire, the consuming fire of God's presence. When He states He has determined a consumption upon the Earth, He means it. It will not be consumed with a flood of waters. It will be consumed by His glory, and a new earth shall be created. That is what I believe.
On the rest, we can agree to disagree. Is. 14 and Ez 28 have long been seen both ways by many expositors for various reasons down through the centuries.
I have no difficulties with "prophetic language." I also have no difficulties with God placing truths within truths, secondary or dual applications all throughout Scripture to see gems and details the student of the Bible can learn from.
That goes for Malachi 4, as well.
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