The Evangelical Universalist Forum

An Honest Question to Purgatorial Universalists

In Episltes, or the Great Salvation Contemplated (1776) James Relly speaks of how the unbelievers are raised in an apprehensive state of wrath and condemnation, one of the things believers have already been delivered from through believing. So, the unbelievers have a sense of future punishment in their *consciences * but it does not follow that they must suffer what they fear.

Amazingly enough I have discussed those contexts in massive detail, and surprise: all shall be salted by fire still means everyone.

Now, you can try arguing that the salting of everyone by fire (as per the salting and fire necessary for sacrifices to be acceptable to God, thus explaining the second half of that verse present in some copies of GosMark) only applies to antemortem suffering, but even then it isn’t only “all in that group”. The context you’re talking about, without actually talking about the contextual details (ironically), involves Jesus warning His apostles that they themselves will be thrown into the unquenchable fire, “the fire the eonian”, of Gehenna, and shall by no means be entering into the kingdom, so long as they don’t repent of (what amounts to) their spiritual pride. (For example wanting to know which of them is the chief apostle, and being annoyed that some people following Jesus aren’t following them, too.)

That warning isn’t at all about the suffering all Christians can be expected to put up with, in different degrees, from the world’s opposition to our being Christian – there are several warnings about that kind of thing (including elsewhere nearby in GosMatt), but categorically those are quite different in their topical contexts. It’s also a warning verbally identical to the Gehenna warnings Jesus gave earlier in public to mixed crowds of pagans and Jews during (what’s traditionally called) the Sermon on the Mount. If you want, you can blame Matthew (and/or whoever the final author/compiler/redactor was, of GosMatt as we have it) for applying that warning to those who aren’t Christian yet, but that’s part of the context, too.

Since most of the apostles weren’t going to survive to see Jerusalem 70CE, or even be in the area where they do still survive, restricting this warning to the fall of Jerusalem makes even less sense. (I gather you yourself aren’t trying to do that; I’m just adding that in passing.)

Since this scene (in both GosMatt and GosMark) is a Gehenna warning, it’s necessarily connected by context to Jesus’ Gehenna warning elsewhere (in GosMatt and GosLuke, somewhat different scenes) that Gehenna involves at least potentially the threat to kill or destroy the soul, not only the body, and that’s pointing to a post-mortem distinction. In fact the Gehenna threat there, is being explicitly distinguished from the most extreme threats Christians can expect from anti-Christians before (and leading to) death. So no, the Gehenna warnings aren’t about what Christians can expect to suffer for our faith before death as loyal Christians: we suffer Gehenna if we treacherously avoid the threats to us as Christians before death.

Luke stops his report of this Matt 18 / Mark 9 scene before the Gehenna warning, but he ports (or reports) significant parts of it across the beginning, middle, and end of a set of material in his Gospel that includes an explicit post-mortem warning for someone who has died and gone to hades/sheol. And for whatever reason, Luke pairs that with the warning in GosMatt to the apostles about being merciful lest they’re thrown to the tormentors. Now of course you can argue that the explicitly post-mortem scene there in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus isn’t really supposed to be a post-mortem punishment warning, but at that point you’re going to have to admit that it wouldn’t matter how obviously obvious the language gets about the punishment being post-mortem, you’re still (for whatever reasons) going to interpret it as not being a warning of post-mortem punishment. By the same proportion, however, it can make no difference if the immediate language somewhere doesn’t explicitly talk about a post-mortem condition of the punishment. Nor about the situation being a punishment per se: the language about “Dives” doesn’t explicitly talk about the fire in hades being punishment, for example, although Jesus’ immediate followup warning in GosLuke does warn with punishment language – the same punishment language Jesus connects by the same judgment parable of the paying of the final cent, to the Gehenna warning at Matt 18, thus also the same scene in Mark 9. That’s part of the context, too. And again, you can argue that punishment context away for whatever reasons seem good to you, but then by the same proportion it cannot matter whether the language happens to be obviously about punishment or not: you aren’t going to treat it as punishment (for whatever reasons) anyway, even if the language is about punishment! Consequently any such lack of specificity can really mean nothing in your arguments.

The Matt 18/Mark 9 Gehenna warning is connected via the Sermon on the Mount to John the Baptist’s warnings, too, which are again punishment warnings, including in direct connection to their Malachi references. That’s all part of the context, too. In fact it’s important for the non-hopeless factor of the punishments for all these things to be connected, because for example punishments at the end of Malachi are explicitly stated to be remedial and disciplinary, to lead the rebels into doing good again instead of evil. That’s part of the context, too. So is the baptism by the Holy Spirit and (even) fire: the clear punitive warnings of Mark 9 and Matt 18 are connected directly to that baptism, but that baptism is a good thing and leads to peace in our hearts with other people.

Similarly, the judgment of the sheep and the goats is verbally connected by “the fire the eonian” to the Matt 18 / Mark 9 Gehenna warning, and which is prepared for the devil and his angels not only for the (baby goats, which thus means a spiritual punishment, not the suffering of death in this life much less the non-punitive suffering a loyal Christian may expect from anti-Christians for being loyal Christians. (Nor are the preceding three judgement parables about suffering from anti-Christians for our faith; they’re explicitly about being punished by God, parabolically speaking, as a warning to the servants of Christ about being bad servants. The judgment of the baby goats follows suit, one way or another.) Those are directly, by terminological connection, contexts of Matt 18 / Mark 9, too. But part of those contexts include the sheep and goat judgment parable from Ezekiel which Christ is referencing, which is also a warning against His own chief servants for having non-salvational attitudes and exploiting their positions to abuse those under their authority – and in which the Son of David to come with the judgment authority of YHWH, is protecting the baby goats (as well as the other weaker members of the flock) from being bullied around! That’s important context for what’s happening to the baby goats in GosMatt 25: even if it’s punishment from God, it isn’t about hopeless punishment from God. God has good intentions toward those baby goats, and so should the mature flock. (Within the narrative and thematic context of the parable, the baby goats are basically being punished for refusing to have saving mercy on baby goats like themselves, who are suffering typical results of being punished by God in other scriptures.)

Even the local discussions nearby in Matt 18, between one very clearly punitive Gehenna warning, and another very clearly punitive warning about being thrown into prison with the tormentors, which are about letting Christians know they’re going to have to deal with sufferings from anti-Christians, start out with a discussion of disciplinary action within the ecclesia: Christians punishing Christians. That can, and should, be accounted for in the interpretation of what’s happening in the other VERY OBVIOUSLY PUNITIVE warnings nearby, which I definitely do: it’s a reference to remedial punishment, not to hopeless punishment. (Which also has a contextual and linguistic connection to remedial punishment language from Jesus to one of the seven churches in the RevJohn prologue epistles, I forget which one offhand at the moment.) But it’s still corrective punishment language, and not punishment language assigned as the lamentable result of anti-Christians harassing Christians for their faithfulness to God. There’s some of that too, but the agencies for the various punishment warnings are distinctly different.

You have to ignore an absolute ton of the immediate, local, and extended contexts to arrive at that conclusion; annnnnnd I could even say you have to massage your conclusions into the data. Context is, as context does, I guess. Accusing the rest of us of what you’re flagrantly doing however, even when we’re clearly not doing what you’re accusing us of doing, does not make your case look better. Except to you, I suppose.

If they don’t suffer the judgment Jesus talked about there, neither will they come to honor the Son and the Father, nor cease doing the bad things. That’s the {hina} purpose of the judgment.

But you asked, and I clearly answered. There is something to be said for a warning of punishment in principle that won’t be carried out in fact, such as the warning to fear the One Who has the power and authority to be destroying the soul as well as the body in Gehenna – that doesn’t mean God will actually be destroying the soul in Gehenna (or if so, not hopelessly so, the way the anti-Christian authorities being distinguished from God here would try to hopelessly destroy the bodies who will be raised after all in the end.) But writing off all statements of future punishment as only a warning of apprehension for something that despite the language is never going to happen (and the warning about destruction of the soul in Gehenna doesn’t specify that this is going to happen, despite many non-universalists trying to read that language into the text :wink: ), simply means that your question earlier doesn’t really matter to you: “how is Origen’s view consistent with the scripture? What in the scripture warrants his belief?”

I might as well have saved my time and effort and not bothered answering: it doesn’t matter what scriptures I present to warrant such belief.

Should I keep that in mind in the future? I do have many other things to be doing with my time and energy. :wink:

Are you quite sure that He said that? I suppose you lifted that “quote” from the NKJV. Yes, it’s written in Greek in the Textus Receptus and thus translated in the AV and the NKJV. But earlier texts didn’t have the words translated as "and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.” For example, the Westcott-Hort edition of the Greek New Testament has only “πας γαρ πυρι αλισθησεται” which the English Standard Version correctly translates as:

Notice the period. That’s the end of verse 49. Other translations that have the same 7 words for verse 49 are ASV, BBE, HCSB, LEB, and NASB

Clearly, the authors of “The Message” understood verse 49 as I do. They paraphrased it:

Paidion said:

That is an interesting concept. I might tend to agree, but I’m not sure about the post mortem part.

Let me float an idea for you Don…That all refining fire happens in this life while we are here on earth? What do you say? :wink:

:laughing: you are soooo predictable I knew I should have put money on it. I was well aware of the alt reading and nearly included a clarifying note BUT given it didn’t and doesn’t in any way change the FACT that the context of Mark’s “everyone” as being germane to the believers in question (Jason’s voluminous verbiage aside—which I shall get to presently) as per the references given. But hey… the cutting-room floor of the Paidion Revised Version (PRV) is littered with excised scripts of biblical texts that undermine your many suspect dogmas — this just adds to the list.

And as for your “sooner or later…” — STILL you provide NO TEXT, revised or otherwise, clearly demonstrating postmortem — why is that :question: :blush:

I say that it often doesn’t happen in this life at all. Many people have gone through their whole life serving only themselves. They have not responded positively to any adversity as a consequence of their self-serving natures—only resentment. So how are their natures going to be refined, if not in the next life?

Yes you may be right but what evidence do we have that says that at the end of a persons earthy existence, that all of what we are or have been is not accounted for? :astonished:

As for guilt of past sins and trespasses, yes; but the ongoing principle is: no condemnation ‘for those who walk according to the Spirit.’ And: " If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you."
There is a big ‘IF’ right there.

It’s not MY “sooner or later…” It’s the TEXT of The Message’s paraphrase.

Jason has referred to many texts that indicate postmortem correction, but you are stubbornly unwilling to accept them as such. Here is one that can’t possibly refer to A.D. 70 or antemortem life:

AFTER HE HAS KILLED, He has the authority to cast into hell. If it’s this life that’s hell, how is He going to cast them into it AFTER He has killed?

that’s pointing to a post-mortem distinction” What? This is so, ONLY because you assert it is so, and yet remains a mile from being established as fact.

The “sole” or identity or very essence (reputation) of the person cast headlong into Gehenna for the Jew would have been the height of disgrace and dishonour — ‘after the killing’ NOT ‘after death ’— which then as you do, read postmortem affliction INTO it has nothing to do with it.

Well Jason… that either side of your [size=150]:[/size] is utter and complete contradictory double-dutch! And besides… by the very nature of things “Gehenna threats” WERE at Jesus’ words, IF such can be trusted… something to be avoided — the WHOLE point of his words to his disciples… again, stick with the context and stop trying to project it where it NEVER lay! :unamused:

Jesus’ parable wasn’t a teaching on postmortem… his recounting of popular legend was to make the very stark point that if hardened Israel wouldn’t accept or listen to Moses or the prophets… neither would they be convinced of one rising from the dead — such as Jesus did. Not only that… IF you are going to accept this as Jesus’ “gospel” account of postmortem reality, then there is indeed an impassable gulf postmortem — what does THAT do to your universalism? I suppose one sleight of hand manoeuvre might be the simplistic claim that… the scribe misheard Jesus.

Why you feel the need to pad out your posts with pointless empty rhetoric is beyond me. :unamused:

And YET the context making reference to postmortem :question: Zip, zero, zilch! :unamused:

I’ve made NO case for any lack of a “clearly punitive Gehenna warning” — I’ve simply stated there is NO case for such as you’ve raised postmortem, and your very many words have given very little evidence to the contrary.

The answer to THAT is in the post above to Jason. One clue… the Roman soldiers cast countless bodies to the smouldering fires of gehenna in the valley below Jerusalem’s walls where the worms (maggots) were in no lack of supply.

Does “no condemnation” mean no shame etc, or does it mean… no postmortem affliction — what saith the Scripture? IF all who were placed in Adam were subsequently placed in Christ (there is a big ‘IF’ right there) what are you saying does “no condemnation” then actually mean?

Thus read in its historical context can mean… God’s Spirit will vivify and strengthen them through their forthcoming trials and tribulations, cf. 2Cor 4:11.

Well, what is saith is what I quoted. No condemnation for those who walk according to the Spirit, which is ONLY possible if one does, in fact, have the Spirit of God.

Everything is in historical context, of course. Not a problem. But it would be strange to think that all that Paul learned from the HolySpirit in those desert years and after was meant only for the upcoming tribulation. I think it’s clear - it is to me - that Paul who was the apostle to the GENTILES was taught by God for that and all generations. Exceptions of course for the context of individual church instruction at the time.

So why should Jesus’ listeners fear that (after death) their bodies be cast into the Valley of Hinnom? What would there be to fear?

I, for one, couldn’t care less what happens to my body after death. My body is not I. If animals tear my body apart, or if it is cremated, or if maggots feast on it, I won’t be at all aware of it, so why would I FEAR what is done to my post-mortem body? Again:

There is no rational reason whatever to fear the casting one’s body after death into the earthly Gehenna.

Yep that’s fair enough. One might ask… what did that mean then in the outworking of Israel’s redemption, and what can it mean now in consequence of fulfillment? (assuming that perspective of course)

Unfortunately it IS these exceptions that evangelicalism reads right over in its quest to make the Scriptures relevant to US… as though taking historicity into account somehow quashes that — my argument would be that considering historicity could help curtail so many “out there” dogmas.

I’m all for making biblical principles work for us… I think considering context just helps us beyond those days do it in such a way as to, as Paul did say… “learn not to think beyond what is written” — always a safer way to help NOT read assumptions back into texts… easy to say, harder to do.

That you or I couldn’t give a rip isn’t the point… such shame did carry cultural weight for them in their day in terms of loss — someone consigned to gehenna was the lowest of ignominious ends, i.e., total abandonment / forgotten. The [con]text then of Luke immediately following on say this…

That they didn’t have our rationale isn’t always fully appreciated.

Please provide some evidence for your interpretation. In Scripture or historical.

There is more than one resurrection, only the rigtheous rise at Christ’s coming.

agreed…far far too much suffering…not to mention all the suffering of innocent animals