>He is so just that you nor I have any idea just how just He really is.
>Obviously that He would decree in eternity past that He would die for
>our sins illustrates that our appreciation of His holy nature is
>impoverished,

God never said this of himself. Afterall, God cannot die. Jesus- the
SON OF GOD- most certainly died. You obviously do not understand the
ransom sacrifice very well.

> Not only that, but we read that Lazarus was carried off to Abraham's
> bosom. Are all those gaining salvation reclining on Abraham's bosom?
>You  need to take a Jewish studies course.

You need to stop being so arrogant. Your lack of humility is a major
reason you don't know the Bible from a TV Guide.

I wrote:

> Further note that this is the only place in the Scriptures where
> consciousness and suffering are associated with Hades.

You wrote:

>This only reveals that you do not know your bible. Note that the
>Antichrist and the false prophet are both men and they are thrown into
>the Lake of Fire and a 1000 yrs later when Satan is cast into the LoF,
>the scriptures (Rev 20) reveal that these two men are still alive and
>still being tormented.

satan was thrown into the "abyss" which is not hades. After the
thousand years he will be destroyed by being thron into the symbolic
"lake of fire"

"the lake of fire means the second death" (Rev. 20:14) Notice that
"death and hades" were thrown into this lake of fire. How could
"hell"
be thrown into "hell"?
 The "lake of fire" merely symbolizes eternal destruction.

>You presume that the holy indignation of God
>can be quenched by a finite death?

if you knew the "only true God" the "God and Father of our Lord Jesus
Christ" (John 17:3; Eph. 1:3) than you would know that the punishment
is nonexistance not your mythical pagan "hell" doctrine. For as long as
you blindly and falsely accuse YHWH of being a "trinity" you will never
truly know him

> Nor will it do
> to claim that before Jesus' death Hades had two compartments,
>No, it has more.  For Tartarus is also there.

first of all the idea that Hades had two "compartments" is a myth so
you are merely adding to the myth.

>And what of  Gehenna?  It is
>clearly identified as a place of punishment for the wicked.  What do
>you do with it?

This name appears 12 times in the Christian Greek Scriptures, and
whereas many translators take the liberty to render it by the word
"hell," a number of modern translations transliterate the word from
the Greek ge´en·na.-Mt 5:22, Ro, Mo, ED, NW, BC (Spanish), NC
(Spanish), also the footnotes of Da and RS.

The deep, narrow Valley of Hinnom, later known by this Greek name, lay
to the S and SW of ancient Jerusalem and is the modern-day Wadi
er-Rababi (Ge Ben Hinnom). (Jos 15:8; 18:16; Jer 19:2, 6; see HINNOM,
VALLEY OF.) Judean Kings Ahaz and Manasseh engaged in idolatrous
worship there, which included the making of human sacrifices by fire to
Baal. (2Ch 28:1, 3; 33:1, 6; Jer 7:31, 32; 32:35) Later, to prevent
such activities there in the future, faithful King Josiah had the place
of idolatrous worship polluted, particularly the section called
Topheth.-2Ki 23:10.

Jesus Christ associated fire with Gehenna (Mt 5:22; 18:9; Mr 9:47, 48),
as did the disciple James, the only Biblical writer besides Matthew,
Mark, and Luke to use the word. (Jas 3:6) Some commentators endeavor to
link such fiery characteristic of Gehenna with the burning of human
sacrifices that was carried on prior to Josiah's reign and, on this
basis, hold that Gehenna was used by Jesus as a symbol of everlasting
torment. However, since Jehovah God expressed repugnance for such
practice, saying that it was "a thing that I had not commanded and
that had not come up into my heart" (Jer 7:31; 32:35), it seems most
unlikely that God's Son, in discussing divine judgment, would make
such idolatrous practice the basis for the symbolic meaning of Gehenna.
It may be noted that God prophetically decreed that the Valley of
Hinnom would serve as a place for mass disposal of dead bodies rather
than for the torture of live victims. (Jer 7:32, 33; 19:2, 6, 7, 10,
11) Thus, at Jeremiah 31:40 the reference to "the low plain of the
carcasses and of the fatty ashes" is generally accepted as
designating the Valley of Hinnom, and a gate known as "the Gate of
the Ash-heaps" evidently opened out onto the eastern extremity of the
valley at its juncture with the ravine of the Kidron. (Ne 3:13, 14) It
seems obvious that such "carcasses" and "fatty ashes" are not
related to the human sacrifices made there under Ahaz and Manasseh,
since any bodies so offered would doubtless be viewed by the idolaters
as "sacred" and would not be left lying in the valley.

Therefore, the Biblical evidence concerning Gehenna generally parallels
the traditional view presented by rabbinic and other sources. That view
is that the Valley of Hinnom was used as a place for the disposal of
waste matter from the city of  Jerusalem. (At Mt 5:30 Ph renders
ge´en·na as "rubbish heap.") Concerning "Gehinnom," the
Jewish commentator David Kimhi (1160-1235?), in his comment on Psalm
27:13, gives the following historical information: "And it is a place
in the land adjoining Jerusalem, and it is a loathsome place, and they
throw there unclean things and carcasses. Also there was a continual
fire there to burn the unclean things and the bones of the carcasses.
Hence, the judgment of the wicked ones is called parabolically
Gehinnom."

Symbolic of Complete Destruction. It is evident that Jesus used Gehenna
as representative of utter destruction resulting from adverse judgment
by God, hence with no resurrection to life as a soul being possible.
(Mt 10:28; Lu 12:4, 5) The scribes and Pharisees as a wicked class were
denounced as 'subjects for Gehenna.' (Mt 23:13-15, 33) To avoid
such destruction, Jesus' followers were to get rid of anything
causing spiritual stumbling, the 'cutting off of a hand or foot'
and the 'tearing out of an eye' figuratively representing their
deadening of these body members with reference to sin.-Mt 18:9; Mr
9:43-47; Col 3:5; compare Mt 5:27-30.

Jesus also apparently alluded to Isaiah 66:24 in describing Gehenna as
a place "where their maggot does not die and the fire is not put
out." (Mr 9:47, 48) That the symbolic picture here is not one of
torture but, rather, of complete destruction is evident from the fact
that the Isaiah text dealt, not with persons who were alive, but with
"the carcasses of the men that were transgressing" against God. If,
as the available evidence indicates, the Valley of Hinnom was a place
for the disposal of garbage and carcasses, fire, perhaps increased in
intensity by the addition of sulfur (compare Isa 30:33), would be the
only suitable means to eliminate such refuse. Where the fire did not
reach, worms, or maggots, would breed, consuming anything not destroyed
by the fire. On this basis, Jesus' words would mean that the
destructive effect of God's adverse judgment would not cease until
complete destruction was attained.

Figurative Use. The disciple James' use of the word "Gehenna"
shows that an unruly tongue is itself a world of unrighteousness and
that one's whole round of living can be affected by fiery words that
defile the speaker's body. The tongue of such a one, "full of
death-dealing poison" and so giving evidence of a bad heart
condition, can cause the user to be sentenced by God to go to the
symbolic Gehenna.-Jas 3:6, 8; compare Mt 12:37; Ps 5:9; 140:3; Ro
3:13.

The Biblical use of Gehenna as a symbol corresponds to that of "the
lake of fire" in the book of Revelation.-Re 20:14, 15; see LAKE OF
FIRE.

back to....
Luke 16:22-26 in the account of "the rich man" and "Lazarus."
The language throughout the account is plainly parabolic and cannot be
construed literally in view of all the preceding texts. Note, however,
that "the rich man" of the parable is spoken of as being
"buried" in Hades, giving further evidence that Hades means the
common grave of mankind.


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