@ TTWSYF
Regardless of loads of scripture...if they don't say people will be tormented forever, then that meaning is added to the text. Loads do not impress me. Give me one scripture; that's all I need.
You brought out a passage which you feel speaks of eternal torment.
Mark
9:43-44 And if your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off: it is better for
you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into
GEHENNA,
INTO THE FIRE THAT SHALL NEVER BE QUENCHED. (44) Where their worm
dieth not and their fire is not quenched.
GEHENNA: Does
the term Gehenna denote or suggest eternal torment?
Gehenna
was a 600 ft deep gorge, called the valley of (GE)Hinnom, that in
Jesus day, was being used as a garbage dump. It was situated just
outside Jerusalem. Garbage, carcasses of animals and even the dead
bodies of criminals were cast into Gehenna, without burial, to be
utterly destroyed by the unquenchable fires that burned night and day
and the seemingly endless supply of scavenging worms and other
natural elements.
Nothing
was thrown into Gehenna alive or in a conscious state, and nothing
was tormented in the literal Gehenna. Jesus employed Gehenna
figuratively to depict the
unlimited destruction associated with the "second death".
Gehenna,
had a bad history. God judged Israel for her sins (Jeremiah.7:31-33;
19:2-13) and prophesied to fill this valley full of bodies. Josephus
informs us that countless bodies were heaped there following the
Roman siege in 69/70 AD. By Jesus' day, the term "Gehenna"
was commonplace imagery in Jewish literature. Gehenna evoked a sense
of total dishonor and disgust; it suggested judgment, death,
decay and destruction, not eternal torment.
FIRE: Does
fire in scripture tend to denote torment?
Fire
is commonly used as a symbol for destruction, rather than conscious
torment. God's fiery judgments burn till all is consumed (See Mal.
4:1 and Ez. 28:18-19). Fire
is said to consume sinners and cities.
ETERNAL
FIRE:
Does
eternal fire denote or necessitate ongoing conscious suffering?
The
destruction of Sodom was notably quick and merciful, but its
desolation perpetual. (Is. 13:19-22, Jer. 50:40) This sudden
destruction, resulted in total desolation that would never be
reversed. This is an example of the eternal
fire
associated with God's final fiery judgment. (Jude 7, 2 Peter
3:10)
UNQUENCHABLE
FIRE:
Does
unquenchable fire denote conscious perpetual pain?
God's
prediction of Jerusalem's destruction with unquenchable fire was
fulfilled when enemy armies burned Jerusalem in 586 BC. (Jeremiah
17:27)
Did the unquenchable fire of Jerusalem's judgment ever go out?
Unquenchable fire symbolizes destruction which nothing will prevent.
UNQUENCHABLE
FIRE AND UNDYING WORMS:
Do
Fire and worms, the twin elements of destruction in literal Gehenna,
denote eternal torment? This same imagery is used in Isaiah 66:24 to
describe the righteous looking over the "dead corpses"
(pegerim). The righteous viewed their destruction, not their misery
or torment. They were not looking at eternal worms or fires that
never went out through eternity.
It
is equally important to note that Jesus' use of Gehenna as a figure
of eternal destruction did not demand or even imply immortal worms or
flames that would never go out throughout history, much less human
suffering and torment. The unquenchable fire and the undying worm in
literal Gehenna, points to the completion of the
work of destruction. In literal Gehenna, the worms did not die off
or the fires abate until the corpses were destroyed completely. The
purpose of Gehenna was destruction, not torment. To sum up, the
literal place of Gehenna was not a place of torment; rather than
conveying torment, literal Gehenna conveyed death and decay. It
evoked feelings of disgust, revulsion and contempt or loathing from onlookers, not
torment and pain of indwellers.
