Featured A real Hell???

Denying hell as literal is heresy.

 

Listen, when Jesus tells his audience that it would be better to dismember your body parts than to enter into Gehenna, it makes him look mighty foolish if Gehenna is not a real place where real torment exists.

 

To be fair to Evan, I have paid attention to what he has previously written on hell when he was reading "Four Views on Hell" a number of months ago.

I think what he means by "metaphorical" is that he does not believe that hell is literally filled with physical flames, but that the picture of flames (burning alive) is a metaphor to describe literal extreme punishment.

I do not think he claims hell is not real.

 

I do not deny Hell, I say that the flames may or may not be real. Perhaps Jesus was using rabbinic hyperbole, or language that could be understood by his 1st century audience. In jewish literature vivid pictures of Hell are given to show that God has ordained an end to wickedness (Four Views on Hell, Nathan Crockett). Notice that Heaven is described in the Bible wit powerful images available to people of the day? Then why not the same for Hell? If you read the essay that Crockett wrote in the book Four Views on Hell you also will walk away convinced that Hell may not be literal flames, but something far worse.

 

It is indeed a very real place! But instead of being burned with fire for all of eternity the wicked may be living in a nest of deadly snakes, spiders, scorpions, or what not. Or perhaps for those that lived during the great world wars and acted as a torturer they may have to experience the war again but from their victims perspective.

 

I do not deny Hell!!!! You are ignorant of the metaphorical view of Hell.

 

Don't you think Christ and the apostles knew the words "deadly snakes, spiders, scorpions"??? He used the word "fire" not snakes, spiders or scorpions. Follow you method of exegesis and you could make the Bible mean whatever your imagination came up with.

 

Crockett makes better arguments than that. As I said he may have been using rabbinic hyperbole to get his point across. This DOES NOT negate the severity nor reality of Hell, but only says that Hell may not be literally with flames.

 

What Biblical contextual based evidence do you have for rejecting the plain and common sense of the term? If God can make a bush that burns with fire but not consumed, he can resurrect bodies that can burn in fire and not be consumed.

Besides pure unbelief, what evidence do you have?

BTW I have Crockets book and I did not find it convincing. For example, he attempts to demonstrate the descriptions of the New Jerusalem ought to be taken metaphorical as well. The problem is that John makes it clear in many instances that he is using similes ("like..as") and metaphors ("gates were pearls"). However, Christ and the apostles don't use similes and metaphors for Gehenna.

 

Agreed, as some would hold to a literal Hell, and being eternal, but not a place where sinners are roasting alive over an open pit, more like the language was used to point out how really bad it would be apart from God!

 

I hold to the literal view and often refer to it in my open air preaching. However I am OPEN to the metaphorical view. I am not going to base my preaching on it, but think that it may be true. Come on Crockett wrote much in the essay surely some of it must have convinced you?

 

Both ways of seeong hell would have it being an eternal really bad place!

 

Exactly.

 

Where is any of this speculation in the Bible?

 

Then why is fire used over and over and over again in scripture?

 

Rabbinic Hyperbole is the answer.

 

I do not know for sure I am just open to the possibility that the flames in Hell may not be literal.

 

You do not vote for Trump and instead do something foolish like write in a candidate who will not win, in truth your vote will go to Hillary. Trump does not have the character and neither does Hillary, so you vote for the platform and the policies.

 

And where does that "openness" end?

For example, are you open to the possibility that the resurrection may not be literal?
How about the miracles--literal or symbolic?

This kind of thinking can get dicey in a hurry.