The Consuming Fire

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” John 3:16 NIV

I have mentioned in my writing how I was quick to condemn others and let them know I was going to heaven and they were going to hell. Basically, anyone who did not believe as I believed was going to hell because I was right and they were wrong. My salvation depended, not on what Jesus did, but on my ability to learn and be obedient to the gospel and obedient to the gospel meant I was baptized for the remission of my sins (comments coming soon).

When I began looking at the traditions of my youth, nothing was sacred and I am still finding things in my life influencing my belief and maturity towards God. When I see these things in my reading, I will meditate on them and attempt to discover what is really said. I’m not sure if it has bothered anyone else in their study but at one time, I considered I might not go to heaven because I did not fully understand Greek. Now, while I would agree it can be a good thing, I do not believe God has hidden salvation in a clever manner and only those with enough training will have the opportunity to accept the saving blood of Jesus in their lives. In fact, coming soon, I believe God has made it so easy; even a very young child can go to heaven.

When speaking of heaven, as I have mentioned a couple of times already, most people I know still believe in heaven and hell and I was extremely surprised one day to read the following passage in my bible.

The wages of sin is eternal life without God.

OK, so I hope you would agree the bible does not say the wages of sin is eternal life and yet I have always been taught there is a part of us lasting forever and some will live eternally in heaven (great joy) and others will live in hell (great suffering). I was taught you have to believe in hell if you believe in heaven because one can’t exist without the other. In other words, if the bible teaches one then the bible teaches the other; a place for the wicked and a place for the righteous in Jesus. While I still have a ladder leaned against the fence I climbed over to get to my changed belief in this matter, I no longer believe in an eternal existence of suffering for the wicked but rather a second death I see presented in the bible.

The bible leads me to believe only God is eternal and when we get to stand before Him at judgment; He will give us the gift of eternal life. In fact, this is the promise we read in the bible. When I now read, I see life apposed to death and not heaven apposed to hell. (Just a side note but my computer wants me to change apposed to opposed but it would not be correct and I have mentioned before I love being correct.)

In John 3:16, I always saw a passage declaring something not completely true. In the training of my heritage, I saw this passage as one needing other passages to be true since it did not mention baptism. I never saw the opposite of salvation was to perish and why should I see this when I had been taught the wicked live forever in torment and will never perish. I went to other passages and read again how I should not fear those who could destroy my body but only Him who could destroy both my body and soul in the fires of hell. I know hell is mentioned here and I still have several unanswered questions on this topic but destroyed still means destroyed and not tormented and those who do understand the language this text was written in will confirm destruction meaning destruction and not torment. I also took a look at the passage in Jude where Sodom serves as an example of those who will suffer the fate of eternal fire and began to look to see whether or not these people are still burning or whether they perished in the fire. Possibly those receiving the letter could go visit the location and still see the fires burning with people yelling and screaming to get out but I think the example is much easier to see being one of complete destruction.

For some time now, I have desired to take Edward Fudge’s book, “The Fire That Consumes” and go through it with some other Christians in the form of a study (we could use the unused group I created) and see the comments of others reading and studying the topic. I have already read this book but think it would be a great study since the author lives in Houston. Since I still have questions unanswered on this topic, it might be possible to get the author to schedule a time in his schedule to come visit and speak to those things not understood or needing clarification. I would need to order another book because mine is given out and I no longer know where it might be.

There is much information on this topic and in closing; I am providing the following link to the much more scholarly writing of Al Maxey on this subject (he covers the rich man and Lazarus in his first Reflection on the topic of hell under the topical index of “The Nature of Man and Final Punishment.”

http://www.zianet.com/maxey/topic.htm

I also provide the following link to a radio interview with Edward Fudge with him discussing the topic on the radio. It is about 38 minutes and I would caution the reader not to fall into the trap of my heritage where I would condemn the message of an intelligent man due to an error in the message. I am sure Edward knows there is not a chapter seven in Jude and yet, the Mike of the past would have condemned the message due to this error.

Just a closing comment but my current thoughts are considering if there is a heaven since I believe I was taught a lie about hell. I have no doubt of being given eternal life but the specifics of our eternal existence and what I have been taught is currently churning around in my brain and I really like one of the possibilities.

www.edwardfudge.com/radio-hell.mp3