I thought, Anon, you didn't have time. What church are you talking about? 5:22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell (Gehenna - garbage dump) fire.29) And if thy right eye . Rev. In the case of life age-during, that life is with God, who is eternal. Connection between Greek word used for "Hell," and garbage dumb. The restoration of these cities is tied to the PEOPLE that lived there in 16:55. So, sulfur and sulfurous rocks know as 'brimstone' were . Because talking about God is nothing more than information for the unknowing? Jesus actually talked of kolasis aionian temporary correction/discipline. I haven't memorised all the conciliar canons and anathemata but I think neither have you. The word Gehenna was the Greek transliteration of g-ben-hinnom (the valley of the sons of Hinnom), an actual geographical site in Jerusalem named after a real person. We are not all doomed as so many believe. All in all it points to a figurative description rather than a literal. Worms and fire normally die and go out (no need for nitpicking about how going out is not being quenched) this is why Jesus raises the point that these worms and this fire (which is obviously figurative language) do NOT DIE and do NOT GO OUT. [2] The valley is also known by the name Gehinnom ( G-Hnnm, lit. The valley was the scene of human sacrifices, burned in the worship of Moloch (2 Kings 16:3 and 21:6), which accounts for the prophecy of Jeremiah that it would be called the Valley of Slaughter under judgment of God (Jer. There is BTW no clear verse saying that the kingdom would have an end, many things that speak against it. Concerning this valley, I've heard that the blood of sacrificed Passover lambs ran down this hillside. Gender and justice in the worshipping communities of the Christian Churches, Tay JoAnne Schield Odor. But that statement says nothing about God no longer being God after the ages. Your quiet deliberations and considerations are refreshing and leave me with hope and joy, is this not the work of the Ekklesia? Not necessarily TO those in the fire, possibly TO OTHERS ABOUT THOSE in the fire if they are already in it, they don't need examples. At the same time, I hope you will believe me that the vast majority of Christians you believe in things like eternal salvation and damnation are not motivated by any joy in seeing other people suffer but by respect for Christ's teaching, Christ's judgement and for other people's freedom of choice. Revelation 9:6 says, And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. The purpose is to build your discernment when people say bibley things, and not let evangelical historical sound bites lead you to repeat them. You cannot base yourself on the supposed "true" meaning of a word Jesus used while at the same time ignoring that he also spoke of eternal punishment. This is getting silly! This is then used as an example of a future judgment. Hell is the place of the future punishment called "Gehenna" or "Gehenna of fire". And, Christ's wonderful promise into banality? If you don't like it, go and take something else but don't put your thoughts into Christ's mouth. Isa 66:2224 As the new heavens and the new earth that I make will endure before me, declares the LORD, so will your name and descendants endure. If eternal hell doctrine is so clearly taught in scripture as we have been told, where was the protest over these men even being allowed to attend the council, much less play major roles? [Are you serious? ["Who is it that is going to go out of the city and look at the worm-eaten, burning bodies? And then "the age" is either eternal both times or it is temporal. (the only other times 'dogs' 'tables' and 'crumbs of bread' are mentioned is in the context of a gentile asking Jesus for help. Explore the mistranslations and actual meanings of eternal and hell (aion, gehenna/hades/tartaroo/sheol). Words can indeed mean different things at different times, with different context and different people. A Christian in error is still a Christian. Rome? But that doesn't meant that only the "devil gets saved in the end" was condemned. You would think this would have been addressed early on if the case was clear cut and universal salvation was heresy. What does a 2000-year-old garbage dump have to do with us, in modern America? He got into trouble with a lot of people over many things, but one area of his teaching was never assailed by any church council and that was his teaching on universal salvation. Obviously, this fire is not still burning today, so this fire had an "age to come" or better put a "forever result" quality to it vs. a duration quality to it. And that's probably what Jerome is after, distinguishing between this end-less but not time-less eternity and the God's eternity without such constraints, wihtout beginning or end. Are you serious? The "ravine of hinnom" (Gehenna) was the city garbage dump in Jerusalem where the garbage was burned. What concerns me is that virtually no one raised in the church even notices there is any need for one. Eventually, part of Gei Ben Hinnom became a dump, with constant day and night burning of trash fires emitting a sulfurous stench. With the common sense which often characterizes Jewish commentators, Kimhi says that the place was the dump of the city, where fires were always kept burning to destroy the refuse; therefore the judgment of the wicked is parabolically called Gehenna.But from the Biblical references the place appears to have nothing physically objectionable about it; in contrast to its contemporary condition Jeremiah prophesied that it would one day be called Valley of Slaughter (The Holy City and Gehenna, JBL 27/1 [1908], 34). Anything thrown into this dump would be completely destroyed, turned into ashes. It is also the location where bodies of executed criminals, or individuals denied a proper burial, would be dumped. Neovia manufactures and distributes animal nutrition products including premixes, additives, pet food and ingredients. There was a fire there, burning constantly to consume the trash. I doubt I will convince you of anything and I don't have time to continue a running debate, but every time I go through this process, I learn something so it has been worth it. (v.23), "Who is it that is going to go out of the city and look at the worm-eaten, burning bodies?". Jerusalem's Hinnom Valley also became the perpetual burning-garbage dump and city sewer. This gate in the southern part of the wall lead to the Hinnom Valley. Gehenna - The Prophetic Garbage Dump. The origin of the "garbage dump" theory appears to be Kimchi. I believe research indicates sometimes during the festivals the priests in the Temple waded in blood up to their ankles, and underground passages carried the blood of all kinds of sacrificed animals down into the Kidron Valley on the east side of the city where farmers there purchased it to use as fertilizer. You are simply ignoring these. My last post was too long so here's the rest . There is no mention in the tons upon tons of writings we have from Church Fathers, Christian and Jewish writers, or even secular writers for that matter. Why were heretics (if you believe that universal salvation is heresy)allowed to do this? Punishment of this type is eternal. Almost every major commentary on Matthew that mentions Gehenna also spoke of the garbage dump. "I doubt I will convince you of anything and I don't have time to continue a running debate, but every time I go through this process, I learn something so it has been worth it.". 66:24) and later with a place of judgment by fire without any special connection to Jerusalem (see, for example, 1 Enoch 27:1ff., 54:1ff., 63:3-4, and 90:26ff) (Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 376-77). But when the burning occured in such a valley, it left "dead bodies" for which the worms feasted on after the fire has destroyed them. Gey Ben Hinnom Stream. ), the Hinnon Valley was condemned as an unholy place. After all, Samaria did not return either but found successors that, though unconneceted with the northern kingdom, called themselves Samaritans. Mark 9:45. And it is obviously contradicting the parable to consider what could happen after the feast for if the kingdom is like that feast and there would be an afterwards, it would no longer be eternal. ", Ezekiel 16:55 "And your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will return to what they were before; and you and your daughters will return to what you were before.". DIANA is a world leader in natural functional solutions for the food, pet food, nutraceuticals, aquaculture and cosmetics industries, and technology leader in plant cell culture, dedicated to the production of active ingredients for food, cosmetics and health. A prophecy in his book that has thus far not come true should not be used to build doctrine on. Because the church is not a "club for solving real and apparent biblical contradictions", it is not a "bible study club". People also ignore the context of what Jesus is talking about. . You see, there is a difference between "material" heresy and "formal" heresy the former is error in contents, which might as well be unwitting, the latter is the obstinate insistance on such an error. Marcos you're welcome to reject the doctrine of eternal torment, but don't pretend that this blogpost or the Bible gives any support to your view. Again, the torment is the separation. A shorter one, posted at Grace to You: Is Hell Really Endless? Yes, that Origen took the idea of universal salvation to its extreme (though it is unclear how far he actually believed this to be factual or whether he was simply engaging in an experiment of thought) and it was this extreme form that was shocking to many Christians. Is that decree retroactive? must be explained away if you want to cling to a doctrine of eternal torture. [Jude uses the fate of Sodom as recounted in Genesis as a type of divine punishment. The fire never went out. The three offenses are being angry without a cause, calling someone 'raca', and calling someone 'fool'. Why consider them 'saints'? I can use the common meaning of words in scripture. Regarding individuals, councils excommunicated those that refused to accept a definition reached (or for crimes i.e. Ive always thought that this was an established fact. In fact, near as anyone can tell, the earliest mention we have of this theory comes a Rabbi named David Kimhi who wrote a commentary on Psalm 27 in the 13th Century. If He only referred to Gehenna itself, a garbage dump that was used as an incinerator outside the city of Jerusalem, the teachers of the law and the Pharisees in Jesus' time had nothing to do with the judgment of Gehenna. It was a fire that burned forever, where the worm did not die and where people went to throw their trash, grimacing from the stench, gritting their teeth in revulsion, never venturing too close for fear of falling into the abhorrent abyss. By Jesus' time, the Valley of Hinnom was a full fledged garbage dump with its wretched rotting aromas, howls of scavenging wild animals, and smoldering and perpetual fires. It is also very instructive to study the writings of the early church fathers and church history to see how prevalent a belief universal salvation was, and then compare the conditions that surrounded the second council at Constantinople where they decided that a confession of belief in an eternal hell was one of the conditions for being accepted into "the church". The planned facility closures, along with a marketing office, could likely lead to the loss of 88 jobs, said a spokesperson. He does not say say that Sodom underwent "punishment of eternal fire" but that Sodom is an example for those that will. Its a blank slate until this commentary pops up. It was Jesus who said, "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matt 25:46). The move is part of its restructuring following the acquisition of Neovia in 2019 for US$1.81bn. Jesus used it as an illustration of the final judgment of the wicked. They will long to die, but death will flee from them. I don't believe that and I don't believe the last commenter does either. Which brings us back to our starting point: it is eternal for good and bad or age-enduring for both, not this for one and that for another. This was originally the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where the filth and dead animals of the city were cast out and burned; a . The three layers of Hades were called glooms for good reason; they were realms devoid of emotion, hope, and peace. Is that decree retroactive?". I am disturbed by the anger and name-calling of the resident I am sure he will give the usual excuses. A longer one, written by Sinclair Ferguson: Universalism and The Reality of Eternal Punishment: The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment. Indeed, there is no reason to search further for ancient burning piles of discarded newspapers, product packaging, and junk mail. Students may use the material on this site for school projects without permission. He just told his audience that if there is part of your body that causes you to stumble, cut it off. For now, just notice the term as . When they fought, their teeth would make a gnashing sound. In Isaiah 30:33, it is referred to as Topheth, a horrible, fearsome place: "Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream . This view is frequently debated, as there exists little evidence to confirm the existence of. He remarked, Gehenna is a repugnant place, into which filth and cadavers are thrown, and in which fires perpetually burn in order to consume the filth and bones; on which account, by analogy, the judgement of the wicked is called Gehenna.. If this is supposed to be a literal story about the suffering of an eternal "hell", there would be no need to explain the gulf as being necessary to prevent people from going from Abraham's bosom to the other side where there is torment. There are quite a few verses in the gospel expressing the same idea in different words, e.g. There is a emergent/universalist writer named Sharon Baker who has a book called Razing Hell. In the context, it's a "causal" from (could even be translated as "by" as this Greek preposition is translated elsewhere in the NT) not a "spacial" from see 2 Thes. When a fire is not quenched it burns UNTIL IT RUNS OUT OF FUEL. 66:24?. You clearly havened thought the whole matter through and would trade in salvation for 20th century sensibilities. He quotes: Edward Robinson, preeminent explorer of the Holy Land beginning in 1838. The parables all imply that the judgement is final, because "the door was locked" it is an unfounded assumption on your part that it would be opened again. Still, a city the size of Jerusalem needed a dump. It was because Gehenna outside the city of Jerusalem was the place where the bodies of criminals were burned and when the . Consider this myth to be thoroughly debunked. The chastisement is in reference to the Second Death, which can't be eternal if we are to take any of the passages about death itself being destroyed literally. Thus already in Old Testament times, the Valley of Hinnom was associated with the destiny of the wicked. 24 And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind., "If it was clearly taught in scripture, why was no council convened to condemn the heresy of universal salvation ". Does no one know about the millennium, a period of teaching, after which satan is loosed for a season to test those that followed him in the first earth age. Topheth has been ready for the king for a long time now. If ALL will be made alive than any passage referring to future punishment MUST be viewed in light of that fact. Isaiah 66:15-16 makes it pretty clear when the context of the rest of the chapter takes place. Who said it was a statement of limitation when did your "statement of fact" become a "statement of limitation"? Out of six major "seminaries" in the early church, four taught universal salvation, one taught annihilation (Ephesus)and one taught eternal punishment (Rome). http://www.afterlife.co.nz/2012/featured-article/tracing-the-road-to-gehenna/ An article looking at Gehenna in the OT and why Jesus may have chosen to use this word. Fears becalmed. James A. Montgomery observes this medieval commentators logic, but does not accept it. When Jesus spoke of Gehenna, his hearers would think of the valley of rotting, worm-infested garbage, where the fire always burned, smoke always lingered, and if the wind blew just right, a smell that sickened the sense wafted in the air. (pp. Hell fire, Gehenna the garbage dump with its constantly burning fire. and rules called canons. The fire never went out. He wrote: In these gardens, lying partly within the mouth of Hinnom and partly in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, and irrigated by the waters of Siloam, Jerome assigns the place of Tophet; where the Jews practised the horrid rites of Baal and Moloch, and burned their sons and their daughters in the fire. It was probably in allusion to this detested and abominable fire, that the later Jews applied the name of this valley (Gehenna), to denote the place of future punishment or the fires of hell. And does the father disinherit the son after the latter has conquered and toiled for him. The punishment is given with the goal of improving the one punished. For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.. But just as soon as Josiah died, the Jews returned to Tophet. Why should anyone want to go out when God and all his people and everything good is inside. He must be alive. He does not say say that Sodom underwent "punishment of eternal fire" but that Sodom is an example for those that will.]. Specifically, Bailey states: [Kimchi] maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. Even when the term "aionian" is applied to God Himself, this does not mean it is describing Him as eternal. Of course, since it was a garbage dump, it was necessary to keep the garbage burning in order to reduce the stench and to limit the number of flies and rats. Even if I couldn't convince you, I am glad that you got something out of it. It does not need to be quenched. That wouldn't happen until the 6th century. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. No matter how many times people say this and it has become street truth there is no evidence that there was a town dump outside Jerusalem in the first century. Saying "God is eternal" is chickening out. The picture of the valley itself proves that it gas been filled in with a huge amount of fill. That did not happen. Gender matters: women and religion, 1960-2000, Barbara Brown Zikmund. OR look at a verse like this and at least rethink the idea that worms die and fires are quenched . Bell says, Gehenna, in Jesus's day, was the city dump People tossed their garbage and waste into this valley. One can have a temporal stay with the eternal God. If they contradict e.o., they contradict e.o. The rest of the chapter goes on to reassure Israel that they will not all be killed in this judgment. Of hhe three valleys below Jerusalem, Hinnom lies dead center below the Old City and temple. Theres nothing before that. Gehenna was not a perpetually burning trash dump." . And speaking of context, you are ignoring the context that Jesus is alluding to in this passage, and that is Isaiah 66:23-24. Voting for the Political Party of Infanticide in 2020 is Great Says JD Greear. 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