by 67mustang 49 Replies latest watchtower bible
According to Revelation 20:10 the devil will be tormented day and night forever and ever along with the "false prophet". I asked several JW's about this and the reply was "we don't take it like that" or "it doesn't literally mean that". Wether or not there is a hell it sure seams they are missing or ignoring something. Ironically they are not open to any agreement.
Anyone have any ideas on this. Thanks
Yes there is:
The Truth About Hell
A REPORT by the Church of England's doctrine commission states that hell is not a fiery furnace after all; rather, it is an abstract place of nothingness. "There are many reasons for this change," the report explains. "But amongst them have been the moral protest from both within and without the Christian faith against a religion of fear, and a growing sense that the picture of God who consigned millions to eternal torment was far removed from the revelation of God's love in Christ."
This discomfort with the traditional view of hell is not exclusive to the Church of England. People from various denominations find it difficult to worship a vengeful God who incinerates sinners. "People want a God who's warm and fuzzy," says Jackson Carroll, professor of religion and society at Duke University's Divinity School. "It's counter to the culture of today to talk about sin and guilt."
Jehovah's Witnesses have long held that hell, as the Bible teaches it, is simply the common grave of dead mankind-not a place of fiery torment. They hold this view, not because it is popular, but because of what the Bible says: "As for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all . . . There is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol ["hell," Catholic Douay Version]."-Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10.
With this clear understanding regarding the condition of the dead, Charles Taze Russell, first president of the Watch Tower Society, wrote back in 1896: "We find [in the Bible] no such place of everlasting torture as the creeds and hymn-books, and many pulpits, erroneously teach. Yet we have found a 'hell,' sheol, hades, to which all our race were condemned on account of Adam's sin, and from which all are redeemed by our Lord's death; and that 'hell' is the tomb-the death condition."
Thus for more than a century, Jehovah's Witnesses have taught the Biblical truth about hell.
Dispite all the creative excusogetics from adventists and JWs and other anti-hell Bible-inerrantist groups, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the authors of Matthew and Revelation, at least, did believe in hell as a part of torment for the souls of the wicked.
I can certainly sympathize with the humanistic ideals behind the denial of the absurdly evil hellfire doctrine, but it is hard to get around the fact that it is an original Christian teaching, and that it finds support in the NT.
- Jan
I don't think the Bible teaches of any fiery hell, nor did the pre - hellenistic Jews and early Christians, although I believe in punishment and totally reject the JW ideas about resurrection of people to a new chance. Consider:
Rev. 14: 10 The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: 11 And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
How eternal? As eternal as the Lamb and the angels will be watching. Note this doesn't take place down in the underworld either.
Rev. 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Here we even get the interpretation of the lake of fire - 2nd death. The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Can you put death and hades into a physical place? No, symbols go down into symbols, not literal places.
Along with that, immortality is a gift (2 Tim. 1:10). The Bible refers to the death as a sleep of nonexistence in the dust in lots of verses, forinstance:
Genesis 3: 19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Isaiah 26:14 The dead will not live, the departed spirits will not rise; Therefore You have punished and destroyed them, And You have wiped out all remembrance of them.
Isaiah 26:19 Your dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the departed spirits.
1 Corinthians 15:17 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. 18 Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.
Consider also the OT use of "hell fire":
Isaiah 34:8 For it is the day of the LORDS vengeance, and the year of recompences for the controversy of Zion. 9 And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch. 10 It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever. 11 But the cormorant and the bittern shall possess it; the owl also and the raven shall dwell in it: and he shall stretch out upon it the line of confusion, and the stones of emptiness. 12 They shall call the nobles thereof to the kingdom, but none shall be there, and all her princes shall be nothing. 13 And thorns shall come up in her palaces, nettles and brambles in the fortresses thereof: and it shall be an habitation of dragons, and a court for owls. 14 The wild beasts of the desert shall also meet with the wild beasts of the island, and the satyr shall cry to his fellow; the screech owl also shall rest there, and find for herself a place of rest.
Read that passage carefully. By modern day definitions it contains a major contradiction. A land is burning forever, smoke goes up forever etc, yet owls and ravens, thorns shall grow and dragons and wild beasts shall live in it etc.
The answer to all this is that the Biblical hellfire is eternal destruction, doubtlessly dragging on non Biblical imagination to make people relate better to it perhaps. I believe the Bible require careful dedicated study and once you get into it, you will see that it sometimes uses quit a few pagan imaginations to make its points come across, yet you are not left with doubt about what the truth is.
God Bless
Edited by - Rev BII on 19 July 2002 18:5:53
Edited by - Rev BII on 19 July 2002 18:7:17
Yes.... and hopefully soon they'll send that murderer/rapist of the little 5-year old girl there.
Very good thoughts about the destruction of all evil with the second death. The reason it will be the second death can explained easy. It will be a total destruction without any way to come back to life. There is no hope of coming back to life.
Jesus gave us life again by cleansing us of all sins after we die. The wages of sin is death. We first must die or live long enough to pass threw to the new system. At that time we are made perfect since Christ will rule on earth as he rules now in heaven since 1914. We have one chance (one thousand years) to prove we are good. If someone is on the side of Satan when he is let loose then he will have the second death.
If you have any questions Rev Bill, I will try to the best of my ability to help clear some things up or get you started.
Yes, but I got off work at 5:00 today.
Hmmm
Bleep:
If anything REV Bill can clear up your confusion! Here you go again sticking in that Bogus 1914. And then you use some article written by who knows who that claims that the Church says no hell and that JWs have been right all along. If you want I can right you a new letter, they will both have the same value- as toilet paper! Bleep, since we are talking about hell and death and the end, can you please tell me why the world didnt end in 1975?
And on a more serious note on the topic of Hell, yes I believe in Hell. If God can create the universe and everything in it, and be the Alpha and the Omega, the beggining and the end, and timeless, and omipresent; he surely can create a Hell!
I never said the world would end in 1975. The Watchtower Society stopped guessing about the time of the end since the spreading of the news needs to be done first. Math 24:14
