And the SMOKE of their torment...No eternal damnation for anyone, except the Devil

1. God interacted with Adam and Eve when they were in the garden of Eden (paradise on earth, somewhere in Irak)).
After their sin they have been chased from Eden, sin and death contaminated the creation and the humans, Eden had been destroyed and this is how the human drama begins. God interacts, indeed, with his prophets but even they can not escape the horrible consequence of the sin of their protoparents. With the exception of Elijah, who is lifted up to the sky, all the others die. This death will be transformed into passage (pascha) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

2. As for eternal torment, I put the sign "=" between torment and punishment. Death is permanent, eternal and conscious (the worm that never sleeps), the exact opposite of eternal life (communion with God).


Death is understood as absence of Life, just as darkness is absence of Light.

When Adam sinned, God asked "Where are you?". God didn't asked for Adam' spacial location, but for his placement in relation with Himself, who is Life and Light.

Death isn’t separation from God. Jesus came dwelt among unrepentant sinners. What separates someone from God, in a sense, is sin..

Death is ceasing to exist. There is no life-sustaining functions. The plain definition of death doesn’t require any interpretation. Death is only reinterpreted to be something else by people who require it to be something else in order to support a doctrine, I.e. eternal torment.

I’ve been in Bible discussions long enough to know that if the plain text literal rendering of the scripture doesn’t help someone, they’ll start redefining words and making simple concepts abstract in order to change.

It’s interesting that the plain text rendering of the Bible says the unrighteous unsaved are put to death and destroyed. It’s as simple as that. Eternal torment was invented to scare people.

Death isn’t separation from God. Jesus came dwelt among unrepentant sinners. What separates someone from God, in a sense, is sin.

Death is ceasing to exist.

There is no life-sustaining functions. The plain definition of death doesn’t require any interpretation.

You consider 'destruction' of the wicked a more 'human' way to deal with the unsaved.
Eternal torment, as the Church One understands it, doesn't mean that the devils torture you and boil you in hot water. Eternal torment comes from the person's incapacity of loving. We have this life (rather short) in which we must learn to love God and our neighbour. Love is the condition sine qua non for inheriting the kingdom of God. The unsaved suffers the consequence of his life choices which made him selfish and proudful. (see the parable of Lazarus and the rich man).

Death isn’t separation from God. Jesus came dwelt among unrepentant sinners. What separates someone from God, in a sense, is sin.

Death is ceasing to exist. There is no life-sustaining functions. The plain definition of death doesn’t require any interpretation. Death is only reinterpreted to be something else by people who require it to be something else in order to support a doctrine, I.e. eternal torment.

I’ve been in Bible discussions long enough to know that if the plain text literal rendering of the scripture doesn’t help someone, they’ll start redefining words and making simple concepts abstract in order to change.

It’s interesting that the plain text rendering of the Bible says the unrighteous unsaved are put to death and destroyed. It’s as simple as that. Eternal torment was invented to scare people because it brings money into the church more effectively.

Death is the consequence of sin. God became flesh in order to conquer death, the thing that parasites our relation with God; remember: God created man for communion. This communion is broken by sin. We commit sins, but as long as we are alive (our bios is alive), we can repent and get closer to God. You agree that sin separates man from God; you also agree, I hope, that death is the consequence of sin. Since sin is separation from God, how much more is death, separation from God?

Jesus Christ talked about levels of being distanced from God. The more one distances from God (Who is Life), the closer he gets to death. It's just logical: if you move astray from life and light, you find yourself in death and darkness. God doesn't punish you, just as the sun doesn't punish you if you hide from it and don't receive it's rays.

Death, as the world and the atheists understand it, is ceasing to exist.
In Christianity, death is passage, from this world, to a resting place, in expectance for the second coming of Jesus Christ (i.e. the resurrection of the dead, the last judgment, the kindgom).

Jesus Christ conquered death with his death. That was His mission: to re-establish the lost communion between God and humans (He destroyed death, because death stands between us and God). This is christianity 101.

Start re-reading the New Testament and notice that Jesus Christ, in his parables, is anything but 'plain' and 'literal'.

As if "destroying" is not something scary...
People who talk about eternal torment are trying to be honest and true to the Bible, not trying to be scary.

Jesus Christ talked about 'weeping and gnashing of teeth', 'the worm that never sleeps', 'the outside', 'the darkness'. I didn't invent these expressions.

I have heard atheists & agnostics say they think a God who would kill his own son is cruel. Or a God who would allow suffering is unjust. The idea that God would be cruel for leaving those who rebel against him in eternal torment is much the same. It's people judging God. As if they have a higher moral standard than God.

unbiblical definition
death is separation from the source of life, or God

Physical death is separation from soul,

physically live person may death in the sense, don’t have relationship with God or spiritually death

spiritually death person still exist not cease to exist so do physically death, the body still exist and people put formalin on to preserved it

the soul either go to heaven or hell

You seem desperate to catch me in some sort of logical error and twist my words. You even created a fantasy world in which you can create a make-believe scenario where suddenly a judgement that applies to three people now applies anyone else too. Sorry (not sorry) but you’re not fooling anyone here.

The resurrected to judgement are thrown into the lake of fire for a second death, not eternal torment, and I agree with that.

Since you read Revelation 20, you don’t have an excuse for missing that point. It says the devil, beast, and false prophet are tormented forever not everyone.

If that's what you think the author intended to communicate you will have to do a better job of explaining why. Most people are going to assume that the later occupants suffer the same effects as the first when thrown into the Lake of Fire. Torment day and night forever and ever.

This is the second death. However the false prophet and the beast were thrown in alive, so for them it was both the first and the second in that sense.


10The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet are,a and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.b

11Then I saw a great white throne and one seated on it. Earth and heaven fled from his presence, and no place was found for them.a 12I also saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened.a Another book was opened, which is the book of life,b and the dead were judged according to their worksc by what was written in the books. 13Then the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hadesa gave up the dead that were in them; each one was judged according to their works. 14Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.a This is the second death, the lake of fire.A 15And anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

It is not logical to assume that the other occupants do not experience the same effects of the Lake of Fire as the first occupants.

It is not desperate to assume that they do, it is the most natural reading of the text. What is desperate is an attempt to say they dont and appeal to the phrase "second death" as your only support for saying they don't.

You are insisting on a definition of second death to mean no knowledge or ability to feel pain or torment.

You would not say that the false prophet and the beast who suffer torment day and night forever and ever "Live" forever would you? They were thrown in alive so it would be more like first and second death at the same time for them.

The others were raised from the dead first then thrown in the Lake of Fire which is why it is called the second death. They suffer torment day and night forever and ever like the first occupants and no one in their right minds would assume otherwise.

You are the one who is desperately trying to force a definition of second death to include non existence. But since it does not say that you would be adding to what the author was communicating.

The author would need to specifically say "These others that were thrown into the Lake of Fire do not suffer the same effects as the first occupants." Or he would know that the reader would never come up with that idea naturally. Every reader assumes that the later occupants suffer the same effects as that described when the first occupants were thrown and and the Lake of Fire was introduced to the reader.

It's unnatural to think that they don't suffer the same effects. It's not logical. This would require a statement saying that they do not. Calling it the second death does not say they don't suffer the same effects. But rather the normal reader would think that suffering torment day and night forever and ever in the Lake of Fire is called the second death.

Do some research on this passage and I think you will discover that the "torment day and night forever and ever" is intended by the author to describe what happens to EVERYONE who is thrown into the Lake of Fire. It is not possible to apply it only to the first occupants and not the others. Any attempt to do so is a sure sign of desperation and distortion of scripture to support a false doctrine.

This doesn’t work the from the angle you’re saying it does. Eternal torment of anyone or anything is definitely a minority doctrine in the Bible. It applies to three people in Revelation 20. The rest of the Bible from Genesis to Revelation is conclusive on the fate of the unrighteous as being put to death or destroyed.

This works the other way around. We don’t disregard over two dozen verses bout the unrighteous being destroyed in favor of a single verse that says llonly three persons are tormented forever. Actually, it’s quite the opposite.

People want to make death not mean death, destruction not mean destruction, but we can just as easily say the words “day and night forever” doesn’t literally mean day and night forever if forever doesn’t always mean forever in the Bible.

I hope you’re aware of what apocalyptic language is. As the name suggests, it sounds apocalyptic but it isn’t always literal. The Bible uses this kind of language a lot, such as in Isaiah 34 being just one example.

Isaiah 34:9,10
9And the streams thereof shall be turned into pitch, and the dust thereof into brimstone, and the land thereof shall become burning pitch.

10It 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.

Quite frankly, Edom isn’t burning night and day forever. So now you have a hermeneutics problem. You’re saying forever means forever based on subjective criteria when the Bible proves that forever isn’t always forever.

Here are your options:

1. The devil, beast, and false prophet are tormented day and night forever.
2. The devil, beast, and false prophet are not really tormented day and night forever.

I can point to Biblical examples of why they possibly aren’t tormented day and night forever, citing many verses that say the unrighteous are put to death or destroyed. However, can you prove they are literally tormented day and night forever citing examples of literal eternal torment in the Bible?

We both know the answer to this question. You can’t quote anything other than Revelation 20 as a direct example of eternal torment. That’s why the eternal torment doctrine doesn’t pass the smell test.

There is more than one application to a prophesy. An immediate application that has to do with a temporal town or city or nation and an application that has to do with the future and some of those prophesies can be applied to the eternal destruction of the afterlife in the Lake of Fire.

Destruction of the wicked continues in the Lake of Fire forever and ever. Those prophesies about Edom, and others meant what they said but you have to apply it to more than this earth.

The smoke of their torment will ascend forever and ever and the NT helps us to see that the Lake of Fire was what was meant all along but people had to wait for more revelation from Jesus about these things. Those souls of Edom will be involved in that destruction in the Lake of Fire that is describes as a destruction whereby they are in torment day and night forever and ever.

I choose to believe that the scriptures mean what they say and that if I don't understand something I have to wait for further revelation but forever and ever means forever and ever.

And Jesus gave us much revelation about eternal torment that they did not have in the OT.

Therefore drawing conclusions based on the OT alone and forcing the NT to restrain it's further revelation to fit into the lesser revelation of the OT is just weird.

We apply the further revelation of hell, torment, Lake of Fire etc that Jesus brought and that God has revealed in the NT to everything the bible said about these things in the OT and we see the whole picture.

We don't take an OT scripture about hell, and say that a NT scripture about hell with further revelation can't be correct because the OT scripture did not say all this new information. Instead we add them together and realize that the New sheds more light on the Old.

We do not take this verse...

9Edom’s streams will be turned into pitch,

her dust into burning sulfur;

her land will become blazing pitch!

10It will not be quenched night or day;

its smoke will rise forever.

... and say forever does not mean forever here. We look at the NT and discover that there is an afterlife whereby the smoke does rise forever for these wicked dead.

And we say "Ah Ha! Eureka!" (your words) Now I understand. Wow! all those people who say forever did not mean forever in this verse because Edom was not burning was WRONG. GOD'S WORD IS LITERAL.

Rev 14...And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night

So we now understand that the Lake of Fire was the future application of this prophesy and what happens to the souls of those who suffered the initial destruction prophesied on earth from this text.

You are wrong for thinking that their destruction ended on earth. It did not.

You will never win this debate because you are wrong and you can't make any sense of your false teachings they will always sound like someone trying to force a fallacy on the scriptures.

Truth will always be easy to defend. Any weird logic you come up with will be easy for me to expose. It's not even a challenge.

God doesn’t send all of the unsaved to eternal torment. The Bible speaks of eternal torment for three specific persons in Revelation 20. It isn’t wise nor acceptable Bible interpretation to say things the Bible doesn’t say.

Okay I was hoping you knew what apocalyptic language is, but I see you didn’t recognize the comparison in the words used in Isiah 34 and Revelation. “Smoke rising forever”, “Day and night forever” are examples of apocalyptic language.

I’m surprised you dismissed using the Old Testament as a basis for understanding New Testament. Everyone knows that the New Testament is based on the Old Testament. You can’t completely understand the NT if you don’t understand the OT. There’s nothing weird about that.

Edom was a physical place on Earth at the time it was being written about. It isn’t about a future prophecy. The Edomites were enemies with Israel during the time they were being written about.

Furthermore, even if it is a future prophecy, it still doesn’t mean forever. There will be a New Earth where Edom isn’t burning forever. You still have a bit hermeneutics mountain to climb over to make eternal torment even possible.

Lacking any supporting texts, your eternal torment doctrine is false from my perspective, but you’re free to believe whatever you want.

Now moving on to another example. Let’s use the New Testament this time:

Jude
7In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.

Sodom and Gomorrah were reduced to ashes using fire and brimstone. Jude 1:7 says they are an example of what happens to those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire. Guess what? Sodom and Gomorrah isn’t in eternal fire. Again, the Bible directly contradicts your definition of eternal.

Okay I was hoping you knew what apocalyptic language is, but I see you didn’t recognize the comparison in the words used in Isiah 34 and Revelation. “Smoke rising forever”, “Day and night forever” are examples of apocalyptic language.

I’m surprised you dismissed using the Old Testament as a basis for understanding New Testament. Everyone knows that the New Testament is based on the Old Testament. You can’t completely understand the NT if you don’t understand the OT. There’s nothing weird about that.

Edom was a physical place on Earth at the time it was being written about. It isn’t about a future prophecy. The Edomites were enemies with Israel during the time they were being written about.

Furthermore, even if it is a future prophecy, it still doesn’t mean forever. There will be a New Earth where Edom isn’t burning forever. You still have a bit hermeneutics mountain to climb over to make eternal torment even possible.

Lacking any supporting texts, your eternal torment doctrine is false from my perspective, but you’re free to believe whatever you want.

Now moving on to another example. Let’s use the New Testament this time:

Jude
7In like manner, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, who indulged in sexual immorality and pursued strange flesh, are on display as an example of those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire.

Sodom and Gomorrah were reduced to ashes using fire and brimstone. Jude 1:7 says they are an example of what happens to those who sustain the punishment of eternal fire. Guess what? Sodom and Gomorrah isn’t in eternal fire. Again, the Bible directly contradicts your definition of eternal.

In case you’re wondering, “that’s talking about the inhabitants of the cities” then 2 Peter 2:6 has got that covered. They we’re reduced to ashes.

2 Peter 2:6
6if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction,breducing them to ashes as an example of what is coming on the ungodly;

If it’s an unbiblical definition then can you prove that using the Bible? So far someone tried to prove death is separation from God, then they discovered it “isn’t written in black and white” in the Bible.

Death being separation from God is one of the ways they keep the eternal torment doctrine alive. When you actually study this topic, you’ll find that death isn’t separation from God, but rather death is simply death.

We can test to see if there is any cognitive dissonance on this point by asking a question.

Why do you believe eternal life is literally eternal life but death isn’t literal death?

The destruction of physical matter & the fate of souls & spirits of the dead are 2 seperate subjects.
Trying to mix them doesn't work.