BEFORE DEATH | AFTER DEATH |AFTER SECOND COMING
Natural Body | What Body? |Spiritual Body 1 Cor. 15:44ff
Image of Earthly| Who's Image? |Image of Heavenly 1 Cor. 15:49
Corruption | Neither one |Incorruption 1 Cor. 15:42-43
Dishonor | Neither one |Glory 1 Corinthians 15:43
Weakness | Neither one |Power 1 Corinthians 15:43
Mortal | Neither one |Immortality 1 Corinthians 15:54
By man (Adam) |(Asleep in Christ) |By man (Christ)
Death |1 Corinthians 15:21|Resurrection of Dead
Die in Adam |Alive Before Being |In Christ MADE ALIVE
1 Cor. 15:22 | "Made Alive" |at His Coming
"Unto Death" | ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? |"Crown of Life" Revelation 2:10
"Once to Die" |The Silence of God |"After This Comes
| But We Speak |Judgment" Hebrews 9:27
"This world" | The Thunderous |"That which is to come"
Ephesians 1:2 | Silence of God | ____________________
Unconditional immortality makes 1 Corinthians 15 impossible by teaching that we are now immortal and now have incorruption from birth. We cannot put on that which we now have on. If we now have an immortal "immaterial, invisible part of man," (W. E. Vine) which cannot die, then Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15 to prove there is a resurrection is destroyed. If the Corinthians that had died had a spirit that could not die, they had not perished, and could not perish; if they were alive in Heaven they could not be resurrected from the dead, there will be no resurrection and 1 Corinthians 15 is nothing but pure footlessness.
Unconditional immortality makes Paul's "changed" impossible 1 Corinthians 15:51. If a person now has an immortal incorruptible soul, it cannot be "changed." It is "us" not just something that is in "us" that will come forth from the grave "changed." If a "soul" were now immortal, it could not be "changed" from mortal to immortal, it could not "put on immorality" at the resurrection. We do not have immortality before the resurrection. The doctrine of immortality from birth makes the soul now have incorruption. Paul says, "This mortal must put on immortality" 1 Corinthians 15:53. "This mortal" is what will put on immortality, not a soul that is already immortal. It is not some inter immaterial, invisible part of us that is now immortal and can never die, which shall be raised from the dead and "changed," but it is "us" that will be "changed" at our resurrection.
Unconditional immortality makes tree of life not needed Genesis 3:22-24: If a person now has an immortal “soul” in them, this soul could not die. It will live forever somewhere, on earth or wherever. A soul leaving the person it is in and moving from earth too wherever; and having more joy, more power, more blessing, etc., when it gets there than is has while it was in our body would not be a death. Without the tree of life, this soul will always live for it would already be immortal and cannot die.
Unconditional immortality makes the Bible contradict the Bible. A soul that cannot die-versus-death, perish, destroy, lost, end. If the wages of sin is death, there cannot be an eternal life of torment. By misusing some scriptures, those who teach there is a soul in a person that can never die makes the Bible contradict itself.
It maybe a delusion to some 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12, "And with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. And for this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they might believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth." The delusion can be any doctrine of man that is not the truth. How big a lie and how many lies can you believe and still say you believe Christ? Where do you draw the line on how much error you can believe? Some believe there is no line, and God will accept anything as worship. Some believe God will accept worship only if it is by faith, which comes from hearing His word (Romans 10:17; 14:23).
Worshiping after the doctrines and precepts of men is not acceptable to God (Matthew 15:9). Not in the time of Christ and not today. If something is not clearly taught in the Bible, you cannot say that something is of faith that comes by hearing (Romans 10:17; 2 Corinthians 5:7). The truth shall make you free (John 8:32). Can anyone who believes any of Satan's lies over God's word be made free by the truth? What you believe and teach can be a delusion, and be the difference in whether you live or die at the judgment if you make God more sadistic and evil than Satan.
Unconditional immortality makes modern spiritualism possible. The teaching, that a person is conscious after death makes it possible and even probable that spirits can and do return to earth and speak to us. This has prepared the way for spiritualism. Satan may be using this to send his angels with lies to lead those who go to spiritualists into his way and keep them from the truth of God. If the truth, that all mankind are asleep from death to the resurrection were believed, and not the pagan doctrine of an immortal soul, then spiritualism would not be possible. If Mary is asleep, then the appearances of her ghost are the manifestations of a demon that makes many believe a lie. Satan is using spiritualism to make many believe his lie, "You shall not surely die."
Unconditional immortality makes some believe in "after death experiences," and makes them believable to many. If a person now has a deathless soul in them, which does not die when the body dies, it makes it possible for some to believe a person can come back and tell things they saw on the other side of death. The truth, that a person is "asleep" from death unto the resurrection, and has no knowledge in the grave (Ecclesiastes 9:10) makes "after death experiences" impossible and unbelievable. A person who is asleep unto the resurrection has no afterlife experiences to tell us. In the many after death experiences I have read, no two are the same.
Not to take anything away from the power of Satan in the world, or his danger to us (see 1 Peter 5:8 etc.), but by making him be an eternal being, and the eternal ruler over Hell, Satan is being given a power he does not have that may add to his being worshiped by many. Some seem to think that to exist in torment with Satan over them may be better than not to exist, and they worship the one who they think will be over them. But, if they knew the truth, that at death Satan’s end will be the same as theirs, and he will have no more power over them, he may not have the appeal of a being to be worshiped. Satan has had many victories, but his lie that mankind now has something in them that is already immortal; therefore, there is no death, and the invention of Hell maybe his biggest victories. Many preach his lies!
Summary: Unconditional immortality reduces God and all spirit beings to being nothing but "mind," to being nothing but mental thoughts with no body, no substance, just thin air nothing. Although most who believed unconditional immortality does not realize it makes God, angels, and mankind after the judgment to be nothing more than mental thoughts, but some have realized what it does to God and men. Robert Morey in "Death and The Afterlife," on page 79 says from the meaning of rephaim, when the body dies, a person enters a new kind of existence and exists as a spirit as angels and other spirits, they are nothing but thoughts. If that were true then both men and angels would be only energy beings, and they would be composed only of mind or mental energy, and be capable of supradimensional activity as thought and speech without any kind of body. Although he did not mention God, he has reduced God to being nothing more than thoughts, an "energy being." According to him God and the soul he believes to now be in a person has no substance of any kind, they are only a disembodied mind or mental energy being.
Ron Halbrook said God is an immortal spirit, without a body, page 117, Florida College Annual Lectures, 1986.
W. E. Vine says, "immaterial, invisible part of man," Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary Of Old And New Testament Words, page 593. According to them Heaven can exist only in the mind of God; it cannot be a real place if spirits are nothing more than thoughts with no substance; could a soul or a spirit be any more real than a dream is, for a soul would have no more actual existence, and no more substance than a dream. Not only is it this doctrine the same as the Pagan doctrine from which it came (we have an immaterial soul in us that has no body or substance), but also it makes God be the same and be nothing but thoughts. Most who believe a part of a person is now immortal have not come to the realization of where this belief takes them. The concept of a real resurrection and a "immaterial, invisible part of man," that is only thoughts are completely incompatible, just a incompatible as the resurrection of a “soul” that is as alive as it will ever be; therefore, it would be as alive before it’s resurrection as it will be after it’s resurrection. “And will raise up US through his power” (1 Corinthians 6:14), not “it.”
If you remain a conscious being after your body dies, have you really died?
Anything that is not taught in the Bible is not a Bible doctrine. Faith comes by hearing God's word. Can anyone who believes something not taught in the Bible truly say he or she has faith?
CHAPTER FOUR
From where came Hell, from man or God?
How did a real earthly valley near Jerusalem
Which existed in the time of Christ
And is still today called by the name “Gehenna”
Become a place of eternal torment named “Hell”
Which is a place that is not on this earth?
The word Hell in the King James Version is translated from four different words, three in the Greek New Testament (Gehenna, hades and Tartarus), and one in the Hebrew Old Testament (sheol). Both sheol in the Old Testament, and hades in the New Testament mean grave; Sheol is translated both (1) grave (2) and Hell in the King James Version, and Tartarus is translated Hell one time. Most other translations (American Standard Version, New American Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, New Revised Standard Version, New International Version, and others) translate only one word (Gehenna) into Hell, and only in the New Testament, not four different words, which have different meanings. The word Hell is not in the Old Testament in any of the above translations, or is not in most other translations. Although this valley is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament called the valley of Hinnom, even the King James Version did not translated it "Hell" as they did in the New Testament. Gehenna was a well-known valley south of Jerusalem long before it was made into a dump, and it exists and has the name “Gehenna” to this day. Josiah might have made this valley into a rubbish dump (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 28:1-4). In the time of Christ this valley was the city dump. Most newer translations, and most all Bible students now admit sheol, hades, and Tartarus do not mean Hell, but some still believe Gehenna should be translated Hell; this makes a detailed look at this valley as it is used in both the Old and New Testament is necessary.
HOW DID ONE PLACE BECOME ANOTHER PLACE?
Gehenna is the name of a valley south of Jerusalem; it is a real geographical location in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, and it is still a real location today, and many tourists now visit it. The valley of Gehenna was used in the time of Christ as the city dump of Jerusalem. In the fifties I did some work at the dump of a city about the size of Jerusalem in the time of Christ. The refuse would be put in large piles and set on fire, and all day rains could not put it out. There would have been no way for the people of Jerusalem to quench it (put out) before it burnt up all there was to burn. The remains of animals were put in pits to be covered, and worms (Greek, Maggots-Young, page 1074) would get into them, and even after we put many gallons of spray in a pit you could see the remains moving from the working of the maggots. Back in the fifties and before cities did not have landfills, but had garbage dumps where they would put the garbage in piles or in pits, and burn the garbage. Big city garbage dumps were always burning night and day, and the smoke could sometimes be seen for miles. They were the same as Gehenna was in the time of Jesus, and were literally used for the destruction of the unwanted city garbage. Brimstone (sulfur) was added to keep the garbage burning in Gehenna; it was always burning night and day, and those near by could see the smoke always rising. On some of the four occasions Christ used Gehenna as a metaphor, those He was speaking to might have been able to see the smoke of Gehenna in the background while He was speaking. The people of Jerusalem did not have a trash pickup as we do, and had to take their own trash to Gehenna; therefore, many of those Christ was speaking to would be very familiar with the never-ending fires and worms that were in Gehenna. How did the name of a valley that is near Jerusalem that exists to this day, and it’s name is still called Gehenna today, how did it’s name become Hell in the Bible when “Hell” is not the name Christ used; “Hell” is a name that was unknown in the time of Christ and unknown to anyone unto long after the New Testament was written? In the time of Christ Gehenna was a place of destruction with no torment, how did the name that Christ used, “Gehenna” get changed into an English word “Hell” that means an eternal place of torment, changed from Gehenna, a place that is on this earth to Hell, a place that is not on this earth, changed from a place of destruction to a place where there is no destruction as there was in Gehenna? The answer is simple; the translators were willing to change the Bible to put their pagan doctrine into the Bible.
Gehenna:
· A place of destruction with no torment
· A place that is on this earth
Hell:
· A pace of torment with no destruction
· A place that is not on this earth
ALEXANDER CAMPBELL: "In the time of our Savior, it (Gehenna) was the place to which all the filth, and the dead bodies of animals and criminals from the city of Jerusalem, were conveyed. Here worms were ever reveling on the carcasses of the dead, and fires were ever kept burning to consume the noxious matter and to purge the air from its pestilential stench" "Five Discourses On Hell," 1848.
MOSES STUART: “After these sacrifices had ceased, the place was desecrated, and made one of loathing and horror. The pious king Josiah caused it to be polluted, 2 Kings xxii. 10; i.e. he caused to e carried their the filth of the city of Jerusalem. It would seem that the custom of desecrating this place, thus happily begun, was continued in after-ages down to the period when our Savior was on earth. Perpetual fires were kept up, in order to consume the offal, which was deposited there. And as the same offal would breed worms (for so all putrefying meat of course does), hence came the expression, “Where the worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched.” “Exegetical Essays On Several Words Relating To Future Punishment,” pages 192-193, Presbyterian Publication Committee, Public Domain.
JACOB BLAIN: “For Dr. George Campbell says, ‘Our Lord, we find from the evangelists, spoke to his countrymen in the dialect of their own Scriptures, and used those names to which the reading of the Law, and the prophets had familiarized them.’ Not observing this fact has been the great cause of the woeful mistake about future punishment. I affirm, then, that Hinnom, (Gehenna) is never used in the O. T. to mean a place of infernal punishment, or world of woe.” Page 49, “Death Not Life: Or, The Theological Hell and Endless Misery Disproved,” public domain.
ALBERT BARNES: "The extreme loathsomeness of the place, and filth and putrefaction, the corruption of the atmosphere, and the lurid fires blazing by day and by night, made it one of the most appalling and terrific objects with which a Jew was ever acquainted," Commentary on Matthew 5:22.
In the time of Jesus Gehenna was used as a place of destruction, but there was no torment in it; those who heard Jesus would understand the use of Gehenna as a symbol of destruction, but would not have been able to look at Gehenna, their city dump and understand how it could be used as a symbol of a place of endless torment by God, for there was no torment in their city dump, and nothing alive was thrown into it, living persons were not tormented in the fire of Gehenna in the Old Testament of the New Testament. When most who use the King James Version read Hell they never understand that Christ was speaking of the city dump, for they cannot from the King James Version for the translators have completely hid this from their readers. It was mistranslated to make the readers understand Christ to be speaking of a place that is not on this earth where God will be forever tormenting immortal souls and will be even after the earth is destroyed, even after the real Gehenna has been destroyed with the earth.
A proper noun is the name of "a particular person, place, or thing." Gehenna is a proper noun, the name of a well-known particular place near Jerusalem, a place where many tourists now visit. To change Gehenna into Hell, another proper noun, the name of a completely different particular place is more than a bad translation; it is a deliberate changing. Bethlehem, Dead Sea, Gehenna, Rome, and Jericho are all proper nouns and should not be changed into another name. Why is Gehenna the only name that is changed to another name? Proper nouns (names) are the same in most languages; therefore, they are not translated, but Gehenna was changed, not translated, into Hell, into another proper noun, the name of another particular place just because the King James translators needed to. Hell is not a translation of Gehenna in the same way that New York is not a translation of Jerusalem. Gehenna and Hell are two different proper names of two completely different places. From where did the King James translators get this name, and why did they want to deliberately mislead all who read their translation? Changing Gehenna into Hell is not a translation; it is a complete change, an unjustifiable change; NO ONE CAN DENY THAT JUSUS USED “GEHENNA” AND THE TRANSLATERS DLIBERATELY CHANGE “GEHENNA” the name of one place on earth TO “HELL” the name of another place that is not on earth. No body can deny that Jesus NEVER used the name “Hell,” or used any Greek word that has the meaning that the English word Hell has today. The name of this valley is used in the New Testament only when speaking to the Jews for it was not a locality or a name that would be known to most Gentiles that did not live near Jerusalem. It was a local particular place and Gehenna would be a name known and used only to those who lived in or near Jerusalem. The names of the city dumps of most cities are not well known to any but to some who live near the dump, and those not from that city would not know or use it. Paul did not say anything about Hell in any of his letters to those not at Jerusalem.
Mistranslating Gehenna into Hell is a deliberate mistranslation. There is no other literal place that the translators changed into another literal place as they did when that changed Gehenna (a literal real place) into Hell (another completely different literal real place).
The name of this valley that is on this earth was not changed into Hell that is not on this earth in the Septuagint, a translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek that was used in the time of Christ; in it Gehenna was left untranslated the same as all other names. "Hell" is not a translation but a deliberate changing of one place for another completely different place. I believe it was deliberately changed to put "Hell" in the Bible. A place has been made up that is not in the Bible; and a name given to it that is not in the Bible; if this is not adding to the Bible then what would it take to add to the Bible? That Christ used the name of a valley, which was the city dump, is completely hid from the reader of the King James Version, whether intentional or not; and the readers are led to believe He spoke of a different place, which has been named "Hell." The teachings of Christ have been deliberately changed. Gehenna is a real geographical location on this earth, not somewhere under the earth or out in space, in the time of Christ Gehenna was a real place where real fires were constantly kept burning since it served as an incinerator for the useless refuse of the city. Christ used it as a symbol (an illustration) of destruction (like the burning of the useless chaff of Luke 3:17). Gehenna cannot be changed into Hell, no one has the right to change what Christ said. To say Gehenna, as used by Christ, is Hell, is to say it has no reference to the Gehenna (the city dump) near Jerusalem.
The Jews might have made the valley of Gehenna a dump because of their hatred of its misuse, but the figures or symbols used by Christ (fire and maggots) did not came from its use in The Old Testament. Fire and maggots are symbols of destruction, not of torment. In the time of Christ there was no torment, and no idol worshipped in Gehenna (the city dump). Christ was not alluding to idol worship or torment, but to the destruction of those who rejected him. Worms (maggots) do not eat living being, but dead ones, not to torment them, but to consume (eat up for food), neither do maggots eat “souls.” As long as there was something to burn or eat, the maggots would never die out, and the fire would not go out, but be consuming, not tormenting what was being cast in. In the time of Christ the valley of Geh