What happens after the names are blotted out of the book of life? They are cast into the Lake of Fire to be purged of their wickedness. To be in the Book of Life simply means that you avoid this painful experience, and you go into life.
We are to become gods. Not THE God, for no one could be in essence what God is. There is but one God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the Trinity. But the purpose of man's creation was that man would grow into godlikeness and therefore be able to share in the divine love which exists between the members of the Trinity. We were created for love, but in order to be able to handle such a thing, we must grow into holiness.
St. Peter speaks of us being made "partakers of the divine nature." Stop and ponder that for a moment. If we were just to be dirtbugs for all eternity, to what purpose would God place the divine nature in us?
Please provide scripture for Purging of the wickedness.
There is no such place as heaven, nor is there such a place as hell. There is simply God and His Kingdom. I don't get how you think that the assurance that God will ultimately save all somehow removes assurance? That is odd to me. It seems you should think just the opposite, that knowing that God has a plan to save all - some in this life and the majority after death through the painful process of purging of our sins - that this would not only be an assurance, but would give great comfort and joy, especially if you have family members who, after repeatedly being witnessed to, want nothing to do with Christ.
Heave does not exist? Hell does not exist?
I have not spoken of the assurance that all will somehow be ultimately saved.
God has a plan 'where' all might be saved. But they are not forced into it. He offers.
Please, where is this purging of sins in scripture?
How long is this purging of sins? The rich man is there now, what? 2k years now? How does that register on your 'fairness' meter?
But . . . I guess since you are assured of your own personal salvation, the salvation of the rest of the world . . . meaaaaaah, who cares? Millions (billions?) of people have lived and died and never heard of Christ, the Gospel, or the Bible. No problem. They're sinners and they deserve hell, right? You just got lucky and were born in a place where you could hear of Christ and have faith.
You act as a child. So starts the name-calling and personal attacks.
It started with Adam and Eve. And the continued teaching, or not. Perhaps in your world, the father, declined to teach his children about God, and so his children did not teach their children about God, for 10 generations. Does the first father then spend 10x or so longer being purged of his sins and the sins he cause, and the next father, 9x, and the next father 8x...? The sins of the father do impact children. For generations. Drunks beget drunks, and so on. But now the sin goes back up from the greatest of grandchildren to each successive generation in reverse and the first paying the greatest price?
This sounds like scripture according to your feelings and what you say is allowed and disallowed.
You can throw all the corrupted modern Greek texts and concordance definitions at me you wish. It does not change the fact. Aionios means "age-lasting." I don't even have to be a Greek scholar to understand this. Look at the etymology of the word. The root is "aion" and aion always means "age," therefore, "aionios" as a derivative of this root word simply cannot mean "eternal" or "everlasting."
Do your word study on Olam. Then apply this to the greek translated as eternal or everlating...
Hell was invented by Roman Catholic clergy to keep the peasants in line through fear. The majority of people before the printing press and education were illiterate, stupid, and bestial. Study their behavior throughout Christian history and you will see what the clergy and hierarchy had to deal with. Fear of hell makes good little Catholics.
When Jesus speaks of "age-lasting correction" (
Matthew 25:46 And these shall go away into age-lasting correction, but the righteous into age-lasting life.) He is limiting His speech only to that which will happen in the next age. So we see that the correction of the wicked in the fires of God's corrective love (which they will experience as hell, according to St. Isaac of Syria) will last for an entire age. After that, we have no clue, as the Revelation of John speaks of "ages of ages" which are yet to come.
So, you acknowledge God's punishment.
But you just don't want it to be eternal. Because that would be too much for you and your translators.
Of course, as Dr. David Bentley Hart says, this is a great discouragement to people because they like to think of themselves as being special people in a special class - they "accepted Jesus" and thus they are, at least in their subconscious, better than all those scruffy sinners of whom it is fun to look down upon and know that they are better than them. I'm not saying necessarily that YOU think that way. Perhaps you go out and try to convert people regularly, caring deeply for their eternal welfare. Bravo! I'm just saying that there are people who think that way, and the idea of letting sinners in to eternal life *gasp* that's a pearl-clutching moment for them to think of such a thing.
This Dr. David Bentley sure sounds proud of his name-calling. He sounds like he is undoing all his work with childish name-calling. He destroys his own credibility. And please, don't hide behind your "I'm not saying necessarily that YOU think that way."
So entering into the love of God is no reason to come to Him? So eschewing sin in this life is no reason for salvation? Do you like the world we live in now? Do you think that if people really were converted and began to live like Christ we might not have wars, murders, child-trafficking, prostitution, inappropriate contentography, wife-beaters, and drugged out homeless lying in the streets? Do you get what I am saying? You have an entirely wrong view of why people need to turn to Christ. We were made for union with God. That is what we should be striving for in this life, both for ourselves and all those who are in deep pain from the slavery of sin.
This is silly. What if's and rainbows. God's plan was not built for what if's. They don't exist.
Unrepentant are delivered to the same place as the devil and his demons. Again, that torment is OK? It is OK that it lasts 1 year? 100 years? 1000k Years? But not eternal? And it is OK for the fallen Angels. Part of God's creation. But not man.
The same word for eternal or everlasting is used in scripture for much more than just Heaven and Hell or whatever you want to call them. And Future tense is not age or ages, or finite amounts of time.
The world we live in is what calls to each and every one of us that there has got to be more, and better. And this is what causes people to cry out to God.
I have not vetted this group. But this is a very well-written rebuttal to not being eternal. Using Hebrew and Greek.
Has the Word “Eternal” Been Correctly Translated? | Biblical Science Institute
Peace and Blessings
