· Nothing about Hell. Does anyone think Hell was led captivity?
· Nothing about people or souls that were in captive in Hell or hades or any other place in the three days Christ was in the grave.
Whatever this is saying Christ did, it is saying He did it when He ascended back to Heaven, not when He was in the grave. It was death that was led captivity, death that up to that time had all in its power with no hope of any life after death. Note: some think it was Satan that had all in captive through death. Either one, it was when Christ ascended back to Heaven, not when He was dead in the grave.
Passages that do not have spirit or soul in them
But are used to prove both
(12) WHAT IS ETERNAL?
BEING TORMENTED BY GOD or DEATH? Matthew 25:46
“Eternal punishment” and “eternal life” are not the same thing. “Punishment” does not mean “life.” If “eternal punishment” were “eternal life” then both would “go away into eternal life.”
The argument made often is that the punishment must last as long as the life, but this does not say what the punishment is. It is a question of whether the punishment is an eternal life with torment, or eternal death. It is supposed by many that punishment can only be conscious suffering by being tormented by God, and their conditioning makes them read an eternal life of being torment by God into it although we are told repeatedly that punishment will be death, destruction, perish, die, lost, etc.; but never that the punishment will be to be tormented by God forever. Nothing could be a more eternal punishment than a death from which there will never be a resurrection. There are many kinds of punishment, but from Matthew 25 all we can say is that there will be punishment, but nothing more or less than punishment. To say Matthew 25 says where or what the punishment will be is to say more than it says; therefore, is adding to what God said. “Kolasis” simply means punishment, whatever the punishment is, whether the punishment is eternal torment, eternal death, or whatever is not defined. To know what the punishment will be we must go to other passages, to say as many do that the punishment in this passage is being eternally torment by God, it is undeniable that when it is said that this passage teaches eternal torment is adding to and saying what is not said in it. God's word must say what the punishment is, and it nowhere says God will be tormenting people forever. His word says, “The wages of sin is death,” not eternal life with torment. The second death is death, not a second life that will be lived in perpetual-torment.
The Greek word, kelasis, which is translated “punishment” in Matthew 25:46 is used only one other time, 1 John 4:18, which is certainly not speaking of endless torment of a deathless soul.
· If a person were restored to life after one year—their punishment would only be for one year.
· If a person were restored to life after one hundred years—their punishment would only be for one hundred years.
· If a person were never restored to life—their punishment would be endless, eternal punishment; the punishment will last as long as the death, unless a person was restored to life their punishment would be eternal punishment, just as eternal as the life of those in Heaven is eternal life.
The Scripture clearly says that the punishment is death, the wages of sin (Romans 6:23). Paul clearly says what the everlasting punishment is, "even eternal destruction" (2 Thessalonians 1:9). Christ contrasts "eternal life" for the saved with "eternal punishment" for the lost. "Life" — "eternal life" is promised to the saved repeatedly (See chapter two: Life and death), but life is never promised to the lost. It will be "death" for them (Romans 6:23; James 1:15). "They that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of judgment" (John 5:29), not to a resurrection of eternal life for those that have done evil. In Revelation 21:3-8 the saved are given the fountain of the water of life freely, but the lost shall have there part in the lake of fire which is the second death, life for the saved, death (not eternal life in torment) for the lost. Christ said, "If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and they gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burnt" (John 15:6). The punishment is not to be forever dying, or is not forever living separated from God; it is forever being dead. The punishment for sin is death (Roman 6:23; James 1:15), and the punishment of death is just as eternal as the life. Punishment can have many forms, but because of the conditioning of some (through their red glasses), they can see only fire and torment in Hell of a deathless soul. We do not torment our children when we punish them do we? The concept of Hell is not from the Bible. The name or the place is not in it, and unto it is clearly shown that there shall be such a place, it cannot be said that this punishment is going to be eternal life in "Hell;" or shown that “the wages of sin” is not death, that there will be any kind of life anyplace after the second death. After the judgment there is much said about the saved; they will be in the image of Christ; they will be immortal and have incorruption. But, there is nothing said about the lost, not what image they will have, not where they will be, or anything at all except that they will be dead (the second death). There is not a passage in the Bible that says the lost will be raised immortal or imperishable, but many that say they will be as stubble, tares, dry branches, will be destroyed. Those who read the Bible with their Hell fire and damnation glasses on see Hell in Matthew 25:46, and on every page of the Bible.
Matthew 25:46 may be the #1 proof text for Hell.
· The name Hell is not in it.
· Today's concept of Hell, a place after the judgment where God will cruelly torment forever is not in it.
· It says that the lost will have a punishment that will be forever, but nothing is said about what the punishment will be or where it will be, yet it is continuously misused to teach both what the punishment will be (eternal torment), and where the punishment will be (in Hell).
Before anyone could possibly see "Hell" in this passage:
1. A place called "Hell" must be assumed.
2. Then accepted as a fact.
3. Then God must be made into the most cruel, sadistic, and fiendish being there is, far surpassing even Satan in cruelty.
There is not one word in Matthew 25:46 about where or what the punishment will be. Other texts say it is death, perish, destroyed, lost, and end. It does not say the punishment is eternal torment after the Judgment Day is over. To teach that Matthew 25:46 says the punishment is an eternal life of torment in Hell, as many do, is adding to it.
· WHAT? What the punishment will be, that it will be eternal torment by God in “Hell” is added.
· WHERE? Where the punishment will be is added. The name of the place is added to the Bible by deliberate mistranslating.
o Both the “what” and the “where” are added by many of the reformation movement that say they do not add to the Bible or take away from it.
Some traditionalists say annihilation (death) is not punishment. They believe that "by no stretch of the imagination can the punishment spoken of in Matthew 25:46 be defined as an end of consciousness, for if actual suffering is lacking, then so is punishment." To say death would not be eternal punishment because there is no eternal consciousness torment is not valid for saying punishment must be torment simply begs the whole question. Where does Matthew 25:46 say anything about suffering; (1) the punishment must be changed to eternal suffering (2) and a place added to have anyone suffering in Hell. If death row is not punishment, then why is the death sentence the worse punishment a person can get, for worse than life in prison? How is being on death row considered by those on it to be in the worst part of a prison; why is the death penalty strongly opposed as being too cruel in this country, but the same persons say death is too mild a punishment for sinners at the Judgment Day? What would those on death row say if someone told them death is not a punishment? Throughout all of history, death has been thought of as being the worst punishment there is. Why would most on death row love to get off it, and have the punishment of life in prison instead of death? They are told they are not fit to live, and their punishment is to be death. For the sinner to stand before God on the Judgment Day and be told he is not fit to live, and he or she will be punished with the second death is the worst kind of punishment. Most fear death more than pain and will do all they can to live a little longer even if it is in pain. Life is our most precious possession; death is the worse punishment because it takes everything from a person and deprives of all the life and joy a person would have had, and the second death will deprive of eternal life and joy in Heaven, of an eternity of ceaseless years of joy beyond any joy we can now even dream of; it is an infinite punishment in that it takes an infinite amount of life and joy from a person. We cannot vision all the joy that will be in Heaven for all eternity; therefore, we cannot know how much death will take from them. It is much more than we can know before the judgment. Death is a much greater punishment than any person can now imagine, and the second death will be an eternal punishment. Those who teach Hell must make them selves and all others believe death is not a punishment; therefore, there must be endless life in Hell being tormented by God. When a lost person comes to the judgment, he may see that the saved will have an eternal life of joy and bliss in a place of indescribable glory and to know that all this could have been his, but for him there will be only the blackness and darkness of nothing. And some say this is not punishment! To say death is not punishment, and there is no punishment if there is no torment of a consciousness soul is to make a statement that all thinking persons know is not the truth.
The opposite of life is death. If the reward for those on the right hand side is life, neither those on the right hand side nor those on the lift could already have eternal life, if they did life would not be given to either one. To say Christ is promising life to those on the right side means those on neither side already had endless life before the promise. To have promised life to those that already had endless life would be a mean-less promise.
GOD’S PUNISHMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
Through out the Old Testament the worst punishment was always death, never torment. If, as the argument is that eternal suffering is the only form of punishment, that annihilation would not be punishment, the Old Testament writers did not seem to know that death would not be punishment. A few of the many times death is said to be punishment in the Old Testament, Exodus 21:12; 21:14; 21:15; 21:16; 21:17; 21:23; 21:29; Leviticus 20:2; 20:9l 20:10; 20:11; 20:12; 20:13: 20:14: 20:15; 20:16; 20:27; Genesis 2:17; Ezekiel 18:4; 18:20. In none of these punishment does not implies consciousness.
Wayne Jackson in the “Christian Courier” said, “Punishment implies consciousness. It would be absurd to describe those who no longer exist as being ‘punished.’” According to him, those who get “death” for killing a person would not be punished. According to him Paul was wrong when he said, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23); “The wages of sin” cannot be “death” for in “death” there is no consciousness. The argument that death is not punishment is nothing but a desperate attempt to change death to life, to change “the wages of sin is death” to “the wages of sin is an endless life of consciousness suffering, an endless life of being tormented by God.”
Summary: Whatever the punishment is in Matthew 25:46, it is the same punishment as Romans 6:16; 6:23; 8:6; Revelation 21:8; James 5:22; 2 Peter 2:1; 2:6; 3:7; Philippians 1:28; 3:19; 2 Corinthians 7:10; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-9; Matthew 3:12; 13:40; John 3:16, etc. The Bible does not teach one kind of punishment in one verse and then change it to a very different kind of punishment in another verse. It does not teach the punishment is everlasting life with torment in one verse and death in another verse. It comes down to the question of,
A passage that does not say what the punishment is cannot override the many passages that do say what it is. From Matthew 25:46 alone, no one can say what the punishment will be. Just that it will be after the judgment and that whatever it is it will be without end. The only way to know what is the punishment of Matthew 25:46 is to go to other passages that do say how God is going to punish the lost. THAT A PASSAGE WHICH DOES NOT SAY WHAT THE PUNISHMENT WILL BE IS THE #1 PROOF TEXT FOR HELL SHOWS THE WEAKNESS OF THE PROOF. Can anyone deny that they are going beyond what the Bible says when they say what the punishment of Matthew 25:56 will be, and deny that they are adding eternal life in Hell when it is not there?
Is the only difference in what the punishment will be? Robert A. Peterson, a strong believer in Hell, says, the Old Testament judgments, the Flood, the destruction of Sodom, and Gomorrah, the Egyptian plagues and the crossing of the Red Sea, the captivities of Israel, the punishment of Sodom and Gomorrah was ALL the loss of human life (page 23-24 of “Hell On Trial). Then on page 26, he says the punishments described in them are consistently earthly and temporal, resulting in physical death. None of these passages speak of life after death or eternal destinies, but he says Annihilationist err, for their belief would entail cessation of existence at death, not the resurrection and punishment of the wicked, "Hell On Trial" P & R Publishing. The New Testament used them as a type of God's judgment after the resurrection; Peterson on page 26 says they resulted in physical death. If the result of the judgment is not death, but an everlasting life of torment, then the types are not true for the types of the Old Testament, for the Old Testament does not show eternal life with punishment; but they would be true if death is the end. The New Testament writers used the Old Testament types to show the destruction of (death), not the torment of the lost. He errs in that he does not give God the power to raise the dead for judgment and punishment if the punishment is to be death. God will raise and judge them, and just as His judgments in the Old Testament resulted "in death" (Peterson), so will His judgment at the resurrection be a second death. His statement that Annihilationist err because they believe the first death to be the end of those not in Christ, and that the lost will not be raised for judgment may possibly be true of some Annihilationist (none that I know of), but it is definitely not true of most. Most believe the Bible teaching that all the dead will be raised for the judgment at the second coming of Christ, then for those not in Christ there will be the second death, an eternal death from which there will never be a resurrection. Did Robert A. Peterson just make a make-believe man of hay or stubble so that he could pull down his stubble Annihilationist? The only difference is in what the punishment will be after the judgment. Believers in Hell believe the punishment, “the wages of sin is death” will not be death but will be "everlasting life with torment." Those who believe in Hell often argue as if they think that those who oppose Hell do not believe in the resurrection, the judgment, or punishment. They know that if Annihilationist do believe in the resurrection, judgment and punishment, they have loss much of their argument, for if the dead are all raised for judgment then the only question is what will the punishment be, and there is no question that the Bible says “the wages of sin is death.” In much of his book he does as many, he assumes that those who do not believe in "Hell" do not believe the lost will be raised for judgment, and he assumes that there is a Hell, and that Hell is its name; then he unjustly puts this name into the mouth of Christ.
A more basic question than what the punishment will be after the resurrection is, "What is the resurrection?" If he is right, that there is that some part of a person that NOW has immortality, and this part of a person is now alive, and that there is no death for this it, then there cannot be a resurrection for whatever this part of a person is, and his belief makes him be the one that does not believe in the resurrection that he falsely says those he calls Annihilationist do believe in. Will what he falsely calls the resurrection be only a bringing of those who are alive in Heaven and Hell; therefore, there are not dead and are already judged, back to earth for a second judgment, or will the resurrection be a real resurrection, a real raising the dead that are really dead and bringing them back to life? On page 68 Peterson says God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the lost, but to rescue them from Hell. This is a typical example of the way Hell is added to the Bible. The Bible is changed to read the way they want it to read and Hell is added where it is not. How could he know the lost shall be rescued from Hell? Is he saying the lost will be rescued from Hell before their death; therefore, before they are in Hell before there death, or is he saying the lost will be rescued from Hell after they are in Hell? Does he have a revelation that is not in the Bible? There is no revelation in the Bible that says the deathless lost are rescued from Hell, but there is much revelation that says the lost are saved from death. "Let him know that he who converts a sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul (psukee-life) from death" (James 5:20). Salvation is from death, the wages of sin (Romans 6:23), not salvation from an everlasting life of being tormented by God. "God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that has the Son has the life; he that has not the Son of God has not the life" (1 John 5:11-12).
E. D. Slough, evangelist, church of Christ: “The word ‘punishment’ is not a puzzling word. One of the most familiar terms in the English language. Do you know its meaning? Just think a moment and try to define it. The dictionary tells us it is the infliction of penalty for an offence. Is it? If the teacher tells the pupil she will ‘punish’ him a question would spring up in his mind, what way? Even the child knows there are many ways to punish. Though our theologians, after losing sight of the definition of the word, at last give it but one idea, that of misery. Cunning enough, indeed, to separate it from its primary meaning in the New Testament. As if death inflicted for sin was not a punishment. If it is a recompense of the some nature, what is the nature, how severe? The term punishment as a retaliation for offence, never defines the nature of the infliction to be executes. It only announces the fact that a judicial penalty is due, without revealing the severity of it. Punishment, retaliation, recompense, penalty, are synonymous words, and may be used interchangeably. So if the Lord had said, ‘These shall go into everlasting recompense’ or penalty, or retaliation, we would still be forced to seek other scriptures to learn what kind of recompense is meant. We are told there can be no punishment without pain. I deny the assertion. I challenge the reader to search the Old Testament for the hundreds of instances where the infliction of death was the penalty for crimes. And that it was inflicted to satisfy the offence regardless of the pain accompanying it. Punishment lasts so long as its results last, and where death has been administered for the satisfaction of crime; the punishment continues till life is restored, and if never restored, it is an everlasting punishment. Lost of property, loss of liberty, loss of life, may all be meted out to the transgressors under the label of punishment. And death as the capital punishment, legalized on the statutes of all civilized nations of the world, is the highest punishment man can inflict—or so recognized,—being the deprivation of life, the first source of all pleasures and enjoyments, and recognized as being forfeited for certain crimes.” “The Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation Of A Monstrous Doctrine,” page 196-197, F. L. Rowe, Publisher, 1914. On line at: www.robertwr.com/EternalTorment.htm
Summary: There is no way that those who believe all are born immortal could really believe in the resurrection, or in the need for it. By teaching that all are born with an immortal something in them that can never die the resurrection is denied and made not possible. The two are not compatible, and both cannot be true. Satan has done his work well.
ETERNAL
ETERNAL JUDGMENT Hebrews 6:2. The judgment will be in one "day" at the second coming of Christ, and it is not being judged forever without end; it is a judgment in which the results will last for eternity. Eternal is not describing a judging that has no end. Eternal has reference to the result of the judgment, not to the act of judging. The judging will end, but its result will never end. The punishment is after the judging, the judging is not the punishment. Will it take God all eternity to do the judging? If so, He will never get to the punishment, it would require two eternities, one eternity that would never end for the judgment, and a second eternity for the punishment after the first eternity ended. Whether the punishment is, if it is from Hell or from death, it will not matter if God never gets past the judging. It is the result of the judgment, an endlessly binding verdict that will never be changed; it is an eternal verdict, not an eternal judging.
When a person goes before a judge he is judging, when the judge gives his judgment--verdict the judging has stopped; after God judges on the Judgment Day His judging will stop, He will not be forever judging, but after His judging has ended His judgment will stand for eternity. The results of His judgment, not the judging, will be eternal.
ETERNAL REDEMPTION Hebrews 9:12, and ETERNAL SALVATION Hebrews 5:9. Not redemption or a saving that goes on without end, but saving once that will be for eternity. The time of salvation ends. God will not be savings those in Heaven for eternity. The redemption will not be going on forever, but the results of the redemption will be without an end. Those that are saved are forever saved, forever redeemed, not forever being redeemed; their salvation is without an end. Even those who believe in Hell believe those in Heaven are redeemed, not being eternally redeemed; and those they believe to be in Hell can never be redeemed.
ETERNAL SIN (Mark 3:29) is a sin, which will be committed in this lifetime, and not endless sinning that will be being committed through out all eternity without end in Hell after the judgment. It is a sin that the result (death: the wages of sin) is a death from which there will never be a resurrection.
ETERNAL FIRE (Jude 7) is not a fire that is still burning Sodom and Gomorrah, and it will be burning these cities from now on, but the results of the fire, the total destruction of these cities will have no end. These cities are not still burning, but the results of the fire were their eternal destruction. The fact that Sodom and Gomorrah suffered the vengeance of "eternal fire" shows that the results are et