The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Mark 9:43 Dismemberment and self mutilation passages

I am a Universalist and wish to get responses on cartain “damnable” passages.
Here is a question put forth to me by an Eternal Tormenter:
PROTESTER SAYS:
“UNFORTUNATELY WE NEED TO DISAGREE WITH YOUR PREMISE THAT CHRIST SAVES ALL. WHAT DO YOU DO WITH PASSAGES LIKE MARK 9:43-48 OR REV.20:11-15 AND 21:8 WHICH SPEAK SUCCESSIVELY OF SINNERS SENT TO THE LAKE OF FIRE AND THE SECOND DEATH. TRULY, IF ETERNAL LIFE MEANS AN ETERNITY WITH JESUS, THEN ETERNAL DEATH MEANS AN ETERNITY WITHOUT JESUS.”
In the above we want to center upon the whole passage, the full context of MARK 9: 38-50

Eternal Life doesn’t mean Eternity with Jesus. The only definition of Eternal Life that the Bible gives us is in John 17:3

John 17:3 - “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” -NIV

Understanding the import of verse 49 may help to understand the whole passage:

For everyone will be salted with fire. (Mark 9:49)

Both salt and fire can be used to purify. Once something is purified, salt and fire are no longer necessary. Could purification be the purpose of the fires of Gehenna as Jesus taught it? True, no one can quench the fires of Gehenna, but that statement is not tantamount to the idea that those fires are eternal.

Concerning Revelation’s lake of fire, note that before the lake of fire every mention of nations and kings are aligned with the anti-christ spirit. But after the lake of fire the kings are pictured coming into the New Jerusalem and worshiping God, and the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. And in the New Jerusalem neither the Kings nor the Nations are part of the Bride along with the Lamb are calling all who are thirsty to come. If someone was in the lake of fire, it sure seems they’d be thirsty. It’s important to not take one scene out of its context and interpret it apart from its context.

Also note that the lake of fire could actually be the Dead Sea. In the Greek text it is “the lake of the fire and the brimstone”; note how definite it sounds. What lake in the Near East is associated with fire and brimstone? The Dead Sea! On the West Bank of the Dead Sea are the ash remains of Sodom and Gomorrah! It is an endorheic lake that throughout history has been associated with fire, brimstone, and tar. The Greeks called it Lake Asphaltites. So I believe that John was actually seeing stuff, people being cast into the Dead Sea. And elsewhere scripture pictures the Dead Sea being healed. In fact, if a river of life flowed out of Jerusalem, it would eventually flow into the Dead Sea and heal it.

Concerning Revelation’s lake of fire, note that before the lake of fire every mention of nations and kings are aligned with the anti-christ spirit. But after the lake of fire the kings are pictured coming into the New Jerusalem and worshiping God, and the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. And in the New Jerusalem neither the Kings nor the Nations are part of the Bride along with the Lamb are calling all who are thirsty to come. If someone was in the lake of fire, it sure seems they’d be thirsty. It’s important to not take one scene out of its context and interpret it apart from its context.

Also note that the lake of fire could actually be the Dead Sea. In the Greek text it is “the lake of the fire and the brimstone”; note how definite it sounds. What lake in the Near East is associated with fire and brimstone? The Dead Sea! On the West Bank of the Dead Sea are the ash remains of Sodom and Gomorrah! It is an endorheic lake that throughout history has been associated with fire, brimstone, and tar. The Greeks called it Lake Asphaltites. So I believe that John was actually seeing stuff, people being cast into the Dead Sea. And elsewhere scripture pictures the Dead Sea being healed. In fact, if a river of life flowed out of Jerusalem, it would eventually flow into the Dead Sea and heal it.

Also, concerning the Dismemberment and self mutilation passages, Jesus was speaking in Hyperbole, overstatement; if Jesus was overstating one’s response to sin, why would we then take the warning of judgment as anything but Hyperbole also!

I’d think being “endorheic” mitigates against any notion of a coming back out of a lake of fire (supposing such to be a reference to the LoF etc).

I think this has more merit and in line with this thinking you may fine this ARTICLE interesting.

Nowhere does Scripture refer to death as eternal or endless. In fact, death will be abolished (1 Cor.15:26), so it’s temporary.

The lake of fire is the second death. Second death is also death and, it too, is temporary, just as death is temporary and not eternal.

Sinners who go to the lake of fire (second death) will be saved. In Revelation the gates to the holy city are never shut. God says He is making “all” new (21:5).

and every creature that is in the heaven, and in the earth, and under the earth, and the things that are upon the sea, and the all things in them, heard I saying, ‘To Him who is sitting upon the throne, and to the Lamb, is the blessing, and the honour, and the glory, and the might – to the ages of the ages!’ (Rev.5:13, YLT)

In John’s other writings in the NT it says:

Jn.1:29 The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!

4:39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.” 40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days. 41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”

John 12:32 And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.”
John 12:47 I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

1 John 2:2 He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.
4:14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
16And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

As for Mark 9:43-49, it says the fire is not quenched. It does not say anyone’s sufferings are not quenched or have no end. It doesn’t say they can’t be saved in the fire or come out of the fire & be saved. It does not say the fire is not remedial, but that everyone will be salted with fire (v.49). A fire can be unquenchable (unextinguished, CLV)] but still go out on its own.

"Let us see how the word “asbestos (unquenchable) was used by the Greeks. Strabo calls it the lamp in the Parthenon,
and Plutarch calls the sacred fire of a temple “unquenchable,” though they were extinguished long ago. Josephus,
the Jewish Priest who saw the destruction of Jerusalem says that the fire on the altar of the temple at Jerusalem
was “always unquenchable” abeston aei, yet he was there when the fire on the altar was forever extinguished. Eusibius,
the church historian who lived in Constantine’s day says that certain martyrs of Alexandria “were burned in unquenchable
fire.” The fire was put out within an hour! Homer speaks of “unquenchable laughter” asbestos gelos, (Iliad, I: 599)”
tentmaker.org/Dew/Dew5/D5-Bi … ained.html

“Now, salt too, just as the divine fire, is associated with the eschatological test in Mark 9:49, a text I have already analysed, where this fire is presented as purifying and performing the disinfecting function of salt: “all will be salted by this fire,” if they have lost their salt in this life. That the context is eschatological and that this salting is, again, the action of the πῦρ αἰώνιον, the fire of the other world, is made clear by the immediately preceding mention of the fire of Gehenna that does not go out and the worm that does not die: these expressions derive from Isa 66:24 and are aimed at differentiating that fire and that worm from the fire and worms of this world, which can be put out and killed, respectively, by anyone. For the fire that cannot be extinguished and the worm that does not die represent punishment in the other world (κόλασις αἰώνιος).” (p.53)

(Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the NewTestament to Eriugena (Brill, 2013. 890 pp.)

tentmaker.org/books/GatesOfHell.html