Rosetta Stoned
Hell in the Teachings of Jesus (Part 3)
This is the eleventh in a 13-part series wherein I give you Hell, a little booklet by the inimitable Dr. Jeff Obadiah Simmonds.
A very significant text is Matthew 25.41, 46:
“Then he will say to those on his left: ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’…”
…Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”This is a key verse for those who believe in an eternal torment for the unrighteous.
Firstly, we read that hell is “an eternal fire”—we may admit that hell itself is eternal, but not necessarily that those thrown into it will be eternally tormented. Again, an “eternal punishment” is one which endures forever. Remember the message of Isaiah concerning the Edomites—this will be an “eternal punishment”: no survivors will remain. In this way “all evildoers… will be forever destroyed” (Ps 92.7).
The fate of the wicked is contrasted with that of the righteous—which is “eternal life” or immortality. If the righteous receive eternal life as a reward, the wicked do not receive eternal life, they receive eternal death—an eternal punishment not of torment but of extinction.
The word “punishment” here is derived from a Greek word meaning “to prune” trees. If one imagines humanity as a tree with good and bad branches, the judgement is one in which the bad branches will be pruned and cut off from the source of life, so that they die. Jesus said:
“I am the vine, you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned.” (John 15.5-6)
Again, the image of fire is one of destruction. Having been removed from its life-source, the branch “withers” and becomes dead wood. In a similar way, God—the One who is immortal—is our source of life. Those who are removed from Him wither and perish. They are thrown into the fire, not as “immortal souls” in endless torment, but as dead wood which is consumed and is no more.
Again, we must ask what the point of the parable of the sheep and the goats is. Those who receive this “eternal punishment” are those who have not visited the sick and imprisoned, fed the hungry, given clothing to the naked and shown hospitality to the stranger. It would be incomprehensible if God were to punish those who have not alleviated suffering by causing infinitely more suffering Himself. God would be condemning flawed humans for doing something that He Himself does! Indeed, God’s actions would be worse than those He is condemning, since the damned are merely those who passively did not help those who suffered, whereas God would be actively causing endless suffering.
However, we should understand this judgement to be one in which they depart “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25.41), a fire which consumes and destroys that which is thrown into it.
There are actually two words used in the Gospels which are translated as “hell.” The first, Hades, is the equivalent of the Hebrew word “Sheol.” This refers not to “hell” as such—to a place of eternal torment—but to the abode of the dead. Often, in the Old Testament, this is simply translated as “the grave.”
The other word is “Gehenna.” This was an actual place outside Jerusalem. Gehenna was the name of the city dump of Jerusalem. It was a ravine south of the city—rubbish, animal carcasses and the corpses of criminals were thrown into this refuse pit. This tip was constantly burning. Jesus used this image of Gehenna to refer to the fate of the unrepentant. However, a criminal thrown into Gehenna was already dead—he was not tormented by the fire which burned day and night. The image, therefore, is one of extinction and destruction, not of enduring torture. There are half a dozen references to this valley in the Gospel of Matthew.
Jesus says that a person who calls another person “fool” will be “in danger of the fire of Gehenna” (Mt 5.22). Is Jesus saying that those who call others “fools” will be eternally tortured in an after-life in the centre of the earth? Or is He using the metaphor, familiar to His audience, of destruction?
Jesus said that it is better to enter heaven with one eye than be thrown into “Gehenna” with two, where “the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9.48). This is also taken as evidence for an eternal torment. However, unquenchable fire and undying worms do not necessarily demand an eternal torment. Jesus is quoting Isaiah 66.24:
And they will go and look at the dead bodies of those who rebelled against Me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.
These “worms,” or maggots, feed on corpses—on dead bodies—not on the living. Those upon whom the maggots feed are not being tormented, but have ceased to be.
Are you lego or logos?
Are you lego or logos?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
Philosopher Nicholas F. Gier explains the Logos Christology of the Gospel of John.
The famous prologue begins: “In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God.” The standard English translation of logos is Word, following the basic meaning of lego as to say or speak. In other words, God is the author of the logic of the world, and his son is the expression of this logic. Furthermore, in the Genesis account of creation God speaks, or as Leonard Bernstein has suggested, sings the structure of the world into being. In Christian theology Christ is the one who orders the world; he is the one who puts it together, gives it meaning, and then redeems it from its fallen state. As Paul states: “For in him all things were created . . . and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16-17).
The etymology of the logos, the Greek word behind “reason” and “logic,” shows that the idea of synthesis is at the origin of these words. The Greek logos is the verbal noun of lego, which, if we follow one root leg means “to gather,” “to collect,” “to pick up,” “to put together,” and later “to speak or say.” We already have the basic ideas of any rational endeavor. We begin by collecting individual facts and thoughts and put them together in an orderly way and usually say something about what we have created.
There are three Reasons that I prefer Andrew Sullivan’s translation (and mine) of λόγος.
In the beginning was Reason, and Reason was with God, and Reason was God.
[Proudly powered by LOGOS™.]
Way too Starry for Atheism.
The Beautiful Ellie Goulding. “I’m a Believer!”
“For the invisible things of Him from the Creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so they are without excuse”
St Paul Romans 1vs20
How is it possible to think *all this* has no design, no meaning?
Tim Wikiriwhi
“Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.” (St Paul Colossians 2vs8)
The fool hath said in his heart “There is not God”.
Jesus said….”Let them alone: they be blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.”
Jefferson’s best friend
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed. …
In a letter to John Adams (24 January 1814), Thomas Jefferson wrote
The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute enquiry into it: and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is as easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.
In a letter to letter to Benjamin Waterhouse (13 October 1815), he wrote
The priests have so disfigured the simple religion of Jesus that no one who reads the sophistications they have engrafted on it, from the jargon of Plato, of Aristotle and other mystics, would conceive these could have been fathered on the sublime preacher of the Sermon on the Mount. Yet, knowing the importance of names, they have assumed that of Christians, while they are mere Platonists, or anything rather than disciples of Jesus.
In a letter to William Short (31 October 1819), he wrote
The greatest of all the reformers of the depraved religion of his own country, was Jesus of Nazareth. Abstracting what is really his from the rubbish in which it is buried, easily distinguished by its lustre from the dross of his biographers, and as separable from that as the diamond from the dunghill.
The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth is better known as The Jefferson Bible. Read it here.
I am a Christian
“I am a Christian,” wrote Thomas Jefferson in a letter to Benjamin Rush.
To the corruptions of Christianity I am, indeed, opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself. I am a Christian, in the only sense in which he wished any one to be; sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others; ascribing to himself every human excellence; and believing he never claimed any other.
Was Jefferson a Christian? Discuss.
You may say, “It depends on what you mean by ‘Christian’,” but it doesn’t. Was Jefferson a Christian? The truth depends on historical facts about Jefferson and what he believed, not on contemporary facts about me and what I had in mind when I asked the question.
The meaning of a word depends on the conventions that govern its use.
I can use the word ‘Christian’ in an unconventional sense. But if I do, then until and unless my non-standard use of the word catches on and itself becomes part of the norm, there is a mismatch between what I say and what I mean. To take a different example, when Ayn Rand said that selfishness is a virtue, she did not mean what she said. (She said that selfishness is a virtue. But it’s not.) She did, however, say what she meant. (She meant that self-interest is a virtue. And it is.)
The conventions which govern our use of the word ‘Christian’ allow for more than one distinct sense of the word. For example, there are nominal Christians, cultural Christians, liberal Christians, fundamentalist Christians, practising Christians, denominational Christians, non-denominational Christians, and so on. But the conventions which govern our use of the word ‘Christian’ also determine a primary sense of the word.
Was Jefferson a real Christian? Discuss.
Privacy = Information Sharing
Jesus said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”
Did you follow through? Good catch? Jesus wants to know how you’re doing.
Submit a follow-up report. Doesn’t have to be much. A picture says a thousand words.
Empty catch? Oh. Well, never mind. Here’s one from one that got away, atheist Mark Hubbard.
These National Socialists Love Their Doublespeak: Privacy = Information Sharing.
Another piece where I need say little other than shine the torch of liberty down the new tunnel being built to the Police State: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technol…
The new Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill.
Privacy = Information sharing. Just as in Orwell, war is peace, et al.
Right. Got it.
The article doesn’t State the SS officer in Wellington behind this one, but it smacks of Frau Collins, fresh from her victory of having destroyed one of the central planks of a free press: the right of a journalist to protect a source from the (largely incompetent) storm troopers at SFO: http://www.solopassion.com/nod…
Anyway, the new affront, and by now routine assault on our liberty under the brute fist of the Nanny State and her crony capitalists:
The Privacy (Information Sharing) Bill reduces the threshold under which information can be disclosed if there is a risk to public health and safety or threat to the life or health of an individual.
It also allows the sharing of personal information between agencies if done in accordance with approved information-sharing agreements.
So government departments can now share information about me, including with private sector cronies, on grounds of public health and safety. You don’t even need to have read Orwell, just watch the six o’clock news, to know there is nothing that can’t be justified somehow under the catch-all ‘public health and safety’.
As fast as the previous Labour Socialist Statists financially raped and plundered the productive with their envy taxes, these National Socialist Statists are destroying individual liberty at a similar breath-taking pace. This State we live in, behind the IRon Drape, is huge: there’s no where you can hide from it, and that’s just how they want it, sorry, you. That’s just how they want you, your life and bank accounts available to them at all times. And the sheeple go ‘bah bah, get Mark Hotchin, tax the rich pricks, redistribute, redistribute’.
Fools and simpleton dolts.
Thanks, Mark, for keeping the torch of liberty burning. (Aren’t you supposed to be on holiday?)
Matthew 4:18-22
And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them.
And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him. (KJV)
Are you a think-fish?
Specifically, are you a Christian libertarian think-fish? If so, then please join me in a new Christian libertarian think-tank.
Christian Choice will occupy space on the political spectrum above the Maxim Institute and half a dozen or so others and up a bit from the New Zealand Centre for Political Research and the newly fused New Zealand Initiative.
Please contact me with further details.