Theology: Hades, The Kingdom, and the Lake of Fire

The Kingdom of Heaven/God is understood and interpreted in five basic ways.

1) The Kingdom of God is simply heaven or all of eternity. "The Celectial Kingdom."

2) The Kingdom of God is the church ruling ever since Christ's resurection, "The Ecclesiastical Kingdom."

3) The Kingdom of God is Ruling in people's hearts, "The Spititual Kingdom."

4) The Kingdom of God came when Israel was restored to their land in human history, and once again became a nation. "The National Kingdom."

5) The Kingdom of God is a literal government established on the earth at the second coming of Christ post armageddon.

As far as I know, there are at least three different Hebrew words that are translated "heaven" - one refers to the atmosphere, the firmament, the sky. The second refers to outer space, where all them thar' stars and galaxies be out there. The third refers to some other kind of place where God is.

Now as far as I've seen reading through the Bible, I cannot find a single place where it is explicitly said that the dead "get into heaven" or "are sent to hell."

What I do find is that the dead descend into Sheol, the righteous and the unrighteous alike, to await their future resurection and subsequent judgement.

The Bible teaches that salvation is free:

Blessed are they
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never count against him.

Psalm 32:1-2

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. (Romans 3:21-24)

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

And yet, it teaches that works are required to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

(Jesus speaking) Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord," will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 7:21)

I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist; yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. (Matthew 11:11)

For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:20)

There are many verses that seem to teach that we are secure in our salvation and cannot lose it, but others that seem to teach that we can lose our salvation through unrighteousness. So it seems that the topic of salvation in the Bible is used in a variety of ways.

I believe that one context of salvation refers to our being saved from the penalty of exclusion from the Millenial Kingdom. This is evidenced in the fact that whenever the kingdom of God/Heaven is refered to, it is written to people who already have a knowledge of God (such as old testament Jews, who had a very strong belief in the Millenial Kingdom, which is why so many people thought Jesus had come to overthrow the Roman Empire) or to Christians in the early church. It was to people who already had a relationship with God, and typically had a reason to be secure in their salvation from the penalty of eternal separation from God.

It is also evidenced in Old Testament prophesy and in many of Jesus' parables, such as the parable of the talents - the wicked servant was thrown out to where there was "weeping and gnashing of teeth," even though he was one of the master's servants (a Christian).

So, I believe that the dead wait in Sheol, in which is also Hades and Paradise, and the righteous take part in the first resurection to govern in the Millenail Kingdom of God, while the unrighteous receive a just and varrying punnishment in Hades.

That servant who knows his master's will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. (Luke 12:47-48)

Later, after the creation of "the new Heaven and the new Earth" all the dead are raised and given their eternal judgement. Only then does everyone finally get sorted out into "heaven" (which is actually the new Heaven and Earth, where "the dwelling place of God is with men") and "hell" (the Lake of Fire, into which all evil and ungodly things are cast to be eternally separated from God.)

The thing that I'm the least sure about is whether those humans separated from God in the Lake of Fire effectively ceace to exist or have the same permanance as those who dwell with God.

Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. (Matthew 10:28)

So, does anyone have anything to add? Preferably something that resembles a constructive theological discussion?

 

If the punishment is 'just' then there's no way it can be eternal, right?
Also, to be trully just, it would be 'rehab' as much as anything.
A disciplinary where they'd gradually come to understand the error of their ways rather than a hopeless eternity of sadistic torture.

 

Are you saying that currently the dead lost are waiting in Sheol and not already in hell/dead saved are waiting in Sheol and not heaven? I am not familiar with "Sheol" at all, but have heard it proposed that Sheol was Old Testament only and that when Jesus died he went hell/Sheol and things were somehow changed. Instead of going to Sheol, people who died after the Resurrection then went straight to heaven or hell.

I'm not really following your statement about the Millenial Kingdom. Are you pre-, post-pre-, or post-tribulation regarding the rapture/first resurrection?

 

If by Bible, you mean old testament, this might be true (although I won't go so far as to say it's definitely true). If you mean the Bible, though, that's not the case.

How odd that you should go to such lengths to use only ideas that are directly stated in the bible, and yet you believe in the Millenial kingdom, which is mentioned nowhere in the bible. The concept of the rapture and millenial kingdom was cobbled together out of scattered verses by a protestant minister some time in the mid 1800s.

Is heaven inside the universe? If not, what is eternity outside of time?

The torture, BTW is supposed to be absence from God, who is always present with us even on earth, and total separation from would be more unbarable than anything else you could experience. I'm not sure where in the bible it mentions anything about sadism, with the possible exception of Hell being very hot.

 

It's still sadistic.
It's just like allowing someone to starve.

 

But what do you do if he refuses to eat?

 

Ah, but the millenial kingdom is mentioned explicitly in the Book of Revelation. Well, more or less. Nowhere in the Bible does it say, "Millenial Kingdom," just like nowhere does it say, "the Trinity." There are many ideas used to describe Biblical concepts that are not specifically Biblical. Some of them are probably useless.

If you have any scripture references regarding the relocation of the soul after death to its eternal resting place, then by all means please show me. That was what I was hoping for.

To Hillbilly, if I had to make a guess I'd say I was a "Pretribulation Millenialist," or something, but I know there are lots of differing points of view. Some say the "first" resurection was when Jesus died, and some "righteous people who had died before" came back to life and walked around in the town.

As far as Sheol no longer existing after the Resurection, it is written in Revelation that "The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them." So I dunno.

What I DO know, is that I'm late for Aikido.

 

No, it's really not. If you believe otherwise, would you care to post the verses? And if it is, how come it took 1800+ years to find it?

No, but Jesus and the Holy Spirit are both mentioned, in addition to God the father. All three are present in the bible, if they're not labeled as the "trinity". I would really have no problem with not using the word "trinity". It's just a name.

 

If they consciously choose to starve, knowing what pain it's causing them then there's nothing you can do. If a matter of being in hell is being separated until they see sense then fair enough. I reckon that anyone who realises what it is to be separated would choose not to be. The reason I thought there was a problem was because I'd heard that it was suffering for eternity with no hope of relief.

 

I still want you to explain the idea of "until" without using time.

 

Pain, suffering and consciousness are all temporal phenomena too.
I don't think it even makes sense to talk about a 'situation' where there is no time.

So you're saying that only people who choose to be separated will suffer this?
And they will fully understand what it is to be separated?
If so, I think hell is going to be pretty empty.

 

No, I'm saying that only those who have accepted God's offer will be with him. Accepting his offer will implicitly make you a better person in life by the guidance of the holy spirit and requires that you seek a relationship with him. At death, I don't know exactly what happens, but I expect that there is a sort of permanence or timelessness to who and what we are in a place without time.

Those who desire to be with God but who aren't worthy are made worthy by the purifying fire of Christ, which is labelled purgatory (this is mainly a Catholic view). Some will directly enter heaven - these are called the saints (by Catholics and protestants alike. The Catholic list of canonized saints isn't supposed to be an exhaustive list of everyone in heaven). Some will end up in Hell.

I don't believe at death we'll get to say that we want to be with God just for our own selfish purposes, to avoid torment, regardless of our nature or how truly we have sought to be with him. The method of determining who goes where is up to God, and ultimately unimportant to us, as long as we know how to assure our own place in heaven. We just have to trust that his judgement is perfect and beyond our own.

Again, I want to stress that time is a concept that belongs to this universe alone. We can't say that someone has been in hell for a long time or a short time outside of this universe. They're just in hell. We can't say that someone will change his nature outside of this universe, given enough time, because there is no time. I think this implies a pureness and definitiveness about who we are and what our nature is in the afterlife that we can't really understand now while living. I think our way of understanding things in the next life is so fundamentally different from the way it is now that we can't really discuss it.

If we simply rely on the fact that God will always do what is just, it doesn't matter what we think is fair or unfair, or what we believe happens to who. We just have to have faith that He will do the right thing, and that He has also willing to grant us personally our salvation by our acceptance of Him.

 

Hey AZ, what do you think is meant by the Kingdom of God?

Here's where the book of Revelation explicitly mentions the Millenial Kingdom:

I mean, like, have you read through Revelation? Or all the other parts of the Bible that allude to this specific event and give specific details of the selection process?

As far as how you keep saying that the Millenial Kingdom idea never existed until the 1800's...well, I don't know who told you that, but it really just isn't true. It sounds like Amillenialist popularization propaganda. Keep in mind, I honestly don't think it's very important how one interprets the End of the Age, God's will will be done regardless and it hardly affects your effectiveness as a servant of God, it's just interesting stuff to ponder.

The Old Testament Jews thought that God was going to establish a litteral government on the earth that some would take part in. Remember how so many people thought Jesus would overthrow Rome? It was the ALMOST UNIVERSAL belief of the early Christian church.

Martin Luther, John Calvin, Wesley and others made the Ecclesiastical Kingdom view popular.

Augustine is regarded as the father of the "Spiritual Kingdom of God." If you are a practicing Catholic, then this is probably your interpretation.

Here's some more Old Testament prophesy:

Well?

A psalm, written by the prophet King David. It's really interesting to note that David is an obvious preincarnate picture of Christ, and it seems that many of his psalms (aside from the ones expressing humility for his own sins) are prophetic recors of prayers made by Jesus or describtions of Christs coming Kingdom.

If you still don't think that the Millenial Kingdom view existed before the 1800's...then I don't know, reread the entire New Testament starting with Hebrews, keeping in mind that it was written to early Jewish Christians.

 

Now, as far as eternal punnishment and timelessness goes, this is the issue about which I am the most confused.

Jesus' life was to pay for the penalty of our sins, and thustly make it possible for us to come to God. All of humanity's sin, past present and future, was placed onto Jesus Christ.

But it would seem, however, that Jesus paid the penalty for these sins physically in this life and then spiritually in Hades. Both of which appear to be FINITE penalties, not infinite penalties.

So here's my idea. Jesus was the mechanism through which we are saved from eternal (probably not even temporal) separation from God, a salvation that is free. His life bridged the gap we cannot cross.

Jesus is also the mechanism through we can experience forgiveness of our sins through repentance. But we're still responsible as stewards for our lives, and if we don't take advantage of that offer to cleanse ourselves from sin, then at the "Judgement seat of Christ," which is the judgement for those who were saves form eternal separation, it is written:

Whether good OR bad. It makes it clear all through the New Testament that salvation is not a "get out of responsibility free" card.

Like Jesus' parable of the sheep and the goats, or the parable of the talents, or the parable of the ten virgins. All of those parables described what the kingdom of heaven would be like at the end of the age.

All of the virgins were invited to the wedding banquet, but some were irresponsible and lost their opportunity to partake.

All the talents were given to servants of the master, and the one that squandered his opportunity to do something usefull was punished.

Sheep and goats are both clean animals, but the sheep, who had lived gracious lives, could enter into the joy of the master, while the goats were cast out.

See? Salvation from separation is free, but but not all are saved into the same reward. Some are required to spend time in the "outer darkness" where there is "weeping ang gnashing of teeth."

That is a finite punnishment. But what of the second death? The Lake of Fire? It is written that all whose names are not found in the Book of Life will be thrown into the Lake of Fire (an eternal punnishment). After the creation of the new heaven and earth. Forever.

If it's separated from God, can it exist? It says the Dragon, Beast, and false prophet will be thrown into the Lake of Fire to be "tormented day and night forever." As AZ points out, I have no idea what forever means in the context of a timeless eternity. But I do believe that everyone will have a fair and obvious opportunity to have their "names in the book of life" and that many will reject it. I believe that God is fair, all knowing, and all mercifull.

 

Okay. Do you agree that it takes faith to believe in this, that there is an offer and that God expects you to take it?
There's so many truth claims and ideologies out there to have faith in, it can only be a matter of luck to choose the 'correct' one. To correctly guess that God has made that particular offer that you are to accept in that particular way. So people can have good reason for not believing that there is such an offer in the first place. Have you an opinion of what becomes of them?

Uh...

Yeah!

I'm interested to know what you mean by 'just'.
It's usually associated with common justice.
People getting what's coming to them and the right thing being done.
However, Biblical Judgement is at odds with the ideals of common justice.
Our justice allows for, and even encourages, people to be rehabilitated and rejoin society where possible. The most permanent punishment we have (death sentence) is becoming looked down upon as savage and the second most permanent (life sentence) is often undermimed by paroles and opportunities to shorten it.

Aikimac once made a point of saying that God's justice is different to our justice. However, the virtuousness of the word 'justice' is tied to common justice. I mean, you could call burning Jews Nazi justice...
My point being; if it's different to our justice (that finds permanent punishment un-ideal) then in what way is it 'just' and in what way is it a virtue?
(Aikimac and Aikikai Novice, this question is open to you guys too! )

 

I think God is way more interested in being our friend than punnishing us. Jesus was the scapegoat for all the punnishment we could ever recieve, the important thing remaining is growing personally and closer to God.

Nonetheless, sin warrants punnishment, so who's justice is truly justice? How do we know what it is and how to define it?

Well, aside from faith that God knows the ultimate truth and distributes the ultimate justice, I can only pose hypothetical models as guesses.

It seems like there are two types of people - those who are "saved" (have their names in the "Book of Life") and those who are unsaved (they don't). I'm less certain than I used to be about the exact barrier that one must cross for salvation into that Book, but the same sentance applies to all who are unsaved - the Lake of Fire. I don't know if that equals annihilation, ceacing to exist, or a permanant state of unpleasantness.

I predict, Strafio, that if you ever did convert to Christianity, you would probably be an annihilationist. (After all, they say, eternal punnishment is not a just sentence for a finite offense!)

I think that even among those who are saved, there will be a kind of cleansing punnishment (almost like a purgatory) that is finite.

But how do we measure extent of the evil that was done in our lives? Hmm...

Well, I think that everything we do, being made in the spiritual likeness of God, can move us to being more God-like or more sinfull. I think that every sinfull action has an exact spiritual amout of "away-from-Godness" that perhaps only God can know. And I think it's an accurate calculation from the states of your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

So the justice that societies enforce on the earth are just a kind of approximation of "real" justice that varies in appropriateness and holiness depending on the culture and society and even the person in question.

 

But the question is, how do we get from that passage to the typical pre-millinnialist views? I originally heard about how it all started on the history channel, but here's the first website I found when I did a search on yahoo for premillenialism (misspelled, should be premillennialism)
http://www.justchristians.com/abundantLife/082000/6.html - I've only skimmed the site, but it seems in line with what I saw on the history channel and what I've read elsewhere.

It became popular in the 1830s, and the term "rapture" did not exist before then. The events of the rapture were pieced together from scattered verses in the bible. The events you described in your original post are not all taken from those few verses you quoted from revelations. The typical premillenialist view pulls together many things other than what is stated in that passage you quoted, to come up with an entire story that there's little foundation for.

Revelations obviously isn't meant to be taken literally. Not only does it not make much sense literally, but the thematic overtones, implications, historical references, and figurative language often seem too meaningful for it to be taken anyway else. To take the kingdom and events described literally seems silly to me, but even sillier seems pulling in events from unrelated passages in the bible, and God knows where else to make a fairy tale about a magic kingdom at the end of time.

The history channel. To be honest, I'm don't remember if it was specifically the millenial kingdom or the rapture that they were talking about, but the two pretty much seem to go together.

Indeed, this was what they thought the Messiah was going to do, but when Jesus came, that's not what he did. Unless you believe the Messiah hasn't come yet -- the NT makes it fairly clear that the kingdom of God that Jesus established isn't a physical kingdom on earth, but that indeed he did destablish it.

This kingdom lasts forever, not a thousand years. And also, it sounds like he's referring to a Kingdom that belongs specifically to the Jews. In any event, the time frame indicated in this passage is "forever", not "millenium". This is not a millenial kingdom.

In fact, this can't be what revelations is referring to, because after the thousand years are up, Satan is released from his prison and begin decieving mankind again.

Again, it's fairly well established in the OT that the "eternal kingdom" of the messiah is God's kingdom and not some transitory kingdom on earth that lasts a thousand years.

That quote clearly isn't referring to your millenial kingdom. It's referring to King David and kings on earth in general. There's absolutely no reason to assume that has anything to do with a millenial kingdom.

I suggest you look up the history of "the rapture". The name of the minister that came up with the idea is well known, although I can't remember it at the moment.

 

Of course it takes faith, that's a fundimental tennant of Christianity, and if you were ever told otherwise, it was either by a liar or an idiot.

No, but I trust that God in his infinite wisdom does.

I don't know how to explain it any better. Existence without time. . . when do our opinions change? How do we change? Change itself is meaningless, in the sense that we understand it, so I think that our self is defined by something more fundimental than what we use to define it in this life. I don't really know how to explain it, except maybe that the concept of transience, of temporary behaviors, ideas, and actions doesn't exist. I don't know what takes its place, because I've never lived outside of time.

Good, you agree, and I think that's an important point.

Weighed by an absolute standard of justice that is more meaningful than any standard we could come up with because it was built by God into the very fabric of reality itself and based on infinite knowledge and understanding. It also adheres to the promises that he has made us and gives a place to those who follow the guidence given in their hearts by the holy spirit.

See the part about time not existing. I think the nature of reality outside of this universe has something to do with it. In this life, there's time in which we can change. In the next life, there's no time, just existence. I can't lock you in hell for a year because that doesn't mean anything outside of our universe. And maybe our nature in the next life is based on something more fundimental than the moment to moment type decisions we make in this one.

See above.

 

Your link has many things in it that are true, but it puts some very incorrect words in people's mouths and even seems to twist a little bit of scripture. I can tell you that many of the things it accuses millenialists of believing are not true at all (necessarily), and I tennatively draw my conclusions from reading the Bible in it's entirety, not cutting and pasting it together. I've never seen amillenialists gnash that hard at millenialists before.

Do you even understand, then, that what you believe is that we're in "the thoudand year reign" right now? Unless I have you wrong? Just because prophesy can be figurative doesn't mean it doesn't mean anything.

I'll agree with you on the shakiness of "the rapture" as being anything that's Biblical, but I'll give some of the verses most commonly used to support the idea:

The rest of the support for the idea of a "rapture" comes from certain interpretations of "the great multitude" in Revelations (which I know is almost entirely, if not completely, figurative). I'm really not sure about a "rapture" but the rapture and the millenium are far from tightly interwoven ideas.
I'll give you the strongest evidence I can think of against the Millenial Kingdom (these were in your link also):

Hmm. There are also passages where Jesus says,

"if I drive out deamons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you." (Matthew 12:28)

And also-

And he said to them, "I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the kingdom of God come with power." (Mark 9:1)

Most of the rest of the parables about the Kingdom of God talk about exclusion from it or compare it to something small that over time becomes something large. And also other analogies that currently confuse me.

You still haven't told me about how you interpret the End of the Age, something alluded to in the Old Testament and specifically mentioned by Jesus in all of the gospels. I mean, no matter how you fit "the kingdom" into it, surely you don't deny the coming of the end of the age, and the second coming of Christ...By the way, kingdom of God IS established forever, and still persists even after the Dragon's release. The "Millenium" just refers to the thousand years (quite probably figurative) of Christ's peacefull reigning on the earth.

Tell me your interpretations, please. I've found that the History and Discovery channels often have a very liberal interpretation of history. And at least I'M refering YOU to the Bible.

 

Right, although many people think these events might have already come to pass with the desctruction of the temple around 70 AD. I think the rapture, though, includes several other events as well.

Indeed, and passages like this are very important, more important, I would say, than the very difficult to understand figurative language in revelations.

It does say "they reigned with Christ for a thousand years". Sounds like that particular kingdom ends after a thousand years. It's called the millennial kingdom for a reason. And if indeed, the thousand years is the "quite probably figurative" peaceful reign of Christ, then that would have to end when the beast wreaks havoc, no (no more peace)?

If you want my interpretation, it's the same interpretation as St. Augustine (a pretty smart guy), which is the same interpretation as the Catholic church, which was the same interpretation as everyone until relatively recently.

Jesus came to fulfill the OT messianic prophecies. The messiah was supposed to be our savior, but his coming was supposed to herald the creation of a new kingdom. The Jews expected this to be a physical kingdom, but as Jesus said in the passages you quoted, this kingdom is God's kingdom, which transcends beyond any earthly kingdom. It is the church and the members who make up the body of Christ on earth. The thousand years is a metaphor for the time between Christ's establishment of this kingdom (over 2000 years ago) and the end of days.

Reading revelations, the parallels with historical figures and groups are astounding, and it seems as if Jon was writing about how Christianity would overcome the forces that opposed it to establish God's kingdom, until the eventual return of Christ, who would bring with him the end of days.

Sorry, I don't know what you want me to direct you to. I already showed that the quotes you posted have nothing to do with a millenial kingdom, except for the passage in revelations. What do you want, a passage where it says "the kingdom in revelations is not literal"? You, in essence, have only posted one bible passage that has anything to do with a millenial kingdom. I did not direct you to the history channel, although I did direct you to a site that explains why the passage doesn't mean what you think it means. If you want another passage in the bible that explains revelations, I'm sorry, but you're out of luck.

And if you ask where I heard something, don't complain when I answer it.