February 1, 2009, 1:01 pm by dc-agape.

The second death is not truly a part of hell, but that is more due to the fact that hell has been taken out of context by todays Christian (possibly from very early times).  As it turns out some of Christendom have forsaken the fiery hell for something “much more compassionate”.  But when John of Patmos wrote the Book of Revelation he used some of the common concepts (lake of fire and Hades) and he added a new one “the second death”.  It is certainly John of Patmos and not the Apostle John that wrote this Book.  It was certainly written in 95AD nearly 62 years after Jesus had died.  But what does John of Patmos mean when he speaks of the “second death”.  I will use the only four verse that use this phrase to help “flesh” out this topic.

In a letter to the Church in Smyrna, John of Patmos tells the Christians there:

Rev 2:11 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.  He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.

All he does in this verse is “encourage” the Christians at Smyrna to overcome, with the fear of the “second death”.  We are never directly told what these church goers must “overcome”.  In later times it is assumed that this is overcoming of human’s (YHWH created) sinful nature.  We are also not told what the “second death” is…and it is not of Gospel tradition.  In less than 70 years the Traditions of Man have added something to the Scriptures.  Worse is that this Tradition of Man is not well documented, but must be assumed.  I guess that is why John of Patmos uses the phrase “He who has an ear”.  We must hear what the Spirit has to say.  But what happens when the Spirit does not say anything to you?

The next time John uses the phrase “second death” is after the 1000 years of peace, but before the Day of Judgment.  For more understanding of this you must read the entire 20^th chapter of Revelation.  He promises those who are:

Rev 20:4-6 I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge.  And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the Word of God.  They had not worshipped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands.  They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.  (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.)  This is the first resurrection. Blesses and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection.  The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

Notice here that we will not be judged by God alone, he will have help from those who have overcome the beast.  The whole concept of Rapture is false.  If I were a Christian I would want to be the ones here on earth to be tortured by Satan.  Being one of the “left behind” would guarantee me a place in heaven, life for a thousand years, and being “priests of God and Christ”.  But anyway, these are the people who are immune to the second death.  Again, we have a promise of safety, but no actually Biblical explaination for the “second death”.

Let’s keep going maybe John of Patmos will reveal what the second death is, we still have two more verses:

Rev 20:14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire is the second death.

Ah, here we have the answer the second death is being thrown into the lake of fire.  But if you have just read the entire 20^th chapter of Revelation (good for you!) you will know that this only occurs after the Day of Judgment and after the thousand years of peace!  YHWH is taking his time to get around to this prophecy, isn’t he?  Even if all the things in the Book of Revelation were to start today…we must still go through the opening of the seven Seals (Rev 6 and 8), the seven Trumpets (Rev 8 and 11), the Sun wearing Woman (Rev 12:1-6), the war in heaven (Rev 12:7-9), the Beast out of the Sea and the Beast out of the Earth (Rev 13), the Harvest, possibly the Rapture (Rev 14:14-20), the Seven Plagues (Rev 15), the Seven Bowls (Rev 16), the Whore of Babylon (Rev 17-18), and the return of Jesus to earth (Rev 19).  After all this, the first resurrection will occur.  And it is those people who are saved from the second death, the people who were alive during those events.  Everyone else is about to be judged on the Day of Judgment and risk being thrown to the second death, even those that were Harvested in Rev 14! 

We finally get to the last mention of the second death here:

Rev 21:8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars – their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the second death.

Now that’s a list of Sinners!  Cowards will experience the second death!  Anyone who is sexually immoral will experience the second death!  All liars will experience the second death!  Idolaters, like the ones who pray to the saints, will be thrown into the second death!  All the Wiccans out there will be thrown into the second death!  Boy is that “fiery lake of burning sulfur” going to be full.  Can you imagine how many souls will be there?  When you add the unbelieving, everyone that never got to hear about Jesus, everyone born in a “non-Christian” society, most of YHWH creation will be thrown into the second death.  What a loving YHWH, what a just YHWH, can you imagine a more worthy being to worship?

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February 1, 2009, 11:17 am by dc-agape.

I have included an update on my research of the topic Hell (Fiery).  This is a better explanation of the story of Lazarus and the rich man.  It was nagging at me as I went through Biblical Topic of hell, but only today did I finally realize, as I finished the Topic, what was different about this story and the rest of the Word of God.

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January 25, 2009, 8:04 am by dc-agape.

Hades is a mythical place for the Greek underworld.  Only 5 times is the term used in the Word of God.  Jesus uses it once and John of Patmos uses it the other 4 times in the Book of Revelation.  In all five cases the word does not refer to the Greek God Hades but to the place of the Greek dead.

Matt 16:18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

This verse comes from the story of when Simon Peter first recognizes Jesus as the Christ.  Jesus promises Simon Peter that the church that Peter is going to created will never enter the Greek mythical place of Hades. 

John of Patmos makes it quite clear that Hades and Death are two different things (see below).  So the heathens from Greece know more about the afterlife than most “christians” believe.  Jesus knew that Hades exists, and the Greeks knew that it existed since about the 9^th century BC.  If the Greeks were right about Hades then what about the other Greek Gods, are they also real?  Both the ancient Greeks and Jesus agreed on Hades, did they also agree on the rest of Greek mythology?

In the Book of Revelation, John of Patmos tells of how “like a son of man (Rev 1:13)” holds the keys to both death and Hades.

Rev 1:18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!  And I hold the keys to death and Hades.

First notice the capitalization of words!  The “son of man” and death are not capitalized, yet Hades is.  A true follower of Jesus does not recognize him as the Son of Man, only as someone who looks “like a son of man”.  Since John uses the indefinite article “a” does this mean that there is more than one “son of man”?  The concept of death is also not as important as Hades to John in his dream.  Hades is a place, no doubt the Greek Underworld.  Second, notice that the “Living One” “holds the keys to death and Hades”.  These are two difference concepts.  Let’s see if John will flush these two different concepts out in the remaining verses.

When John sees the “Four Horseman” the first one is Death, who is followed by Hades:

Rev 6:8 I look, and there before me was a pale horse!  Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him.  They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

Here John names the rider as Death, with a capitalization.  I will, in later posts, cover this apocalyptic dream because it is so mistranslated that most Christians do not know the “Truth”.  But notice in the verse that Hades is a minion of Death.  Hades follows as Death destroys ¼ of the world. 

This is not the same as how John describes Hades later:

Rev 20:13-14 The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire is the second death.

Notice here that the sea, death, and Hades contain all the dead!  Death is not the only place where the dead are kept.  The sea and Hades also contain the dead.  This Greek mythological place actually holds the dead.  But also notice that heaven does not contain the dead.

In the Christian religion when people die they may be kept in the sea, in death, or in the Greek mythical Underworld.  Where will I wait out the “Day of Judgment”?  Where will the TrueChristianTM stay until the “Day of Judgment”?  Hell does not contain the dead.  Heaven does not hold the dead until the “Day of Judgment”.  Only then will all the TrueChristianTM be let into heaven!  The rest of us will be thrown directly into the lake of fire for the second death. 

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January 18, 2009, 11:45 am by dc-agape.

The third part of my Biblical Topics to hell is the “lake of fire”.  I hope you do not feel short changed…this lake is only mentioned three times in the Word.  Both references are in Revelation, so only one man wrote about it.  Neither Jesus not Paul said a word about the “lake of fire”.  That in itself should tell you something about the “lake of fire”.  The author was most likely either John the Presbyter or John of Patmos.  The book itself was most likely written in 95AD, some 60 years after the death of Jesus and Paul had been dead for at least 30 years earlier. We can be sure that this John was not the Apostle John, because the Apostle was in Rome in 95AD standing trial and then imprisoned for at least a year.  When the Apostle John was released he went to Ephesus not Patmos where the Book of Revelation was written (Rev 1:9).  So we can also be sure that the author of this book was not an intimate follower of Jesus. Maybe John was a follower of Paul, even though 30 years between Paul’s death and the writing of this book would make that somewhat unlikely.  John, the author of Revelation, was most likely a follower of the Apostle John.

So what exactly did this John say about the “lake of hell”.  Here it is, in all its fullness:

Rev 20:14-15 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire is the second death.  If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

Two verses, three occurrences of the phrase “lake of fire”.  That is all YHWH wanted to say about the matter.  This is it, to cop a phrase…

I have not tackled the topics of death, Hades, or the second death, yet.  These are important topics that I will cover in the next two posts on hell.  Do notice what is thrown into the “lake of fire”.  The three things thrown in the “lake” are death, Hades, and the people YHWH has chosen to through in the “lake”.  You must also notice when these things are thrown into the “lake of fire”.  No one is in the “lake of fire” until right before the New Jerusalem is ready!  That is after the Tribulation, the Rapture, and the 1000 years of peace. 

The “lake of fire” is permanent destruction.  It is not pain and suffering.  It is not everlasting.  It is not even separation from YHWH…it is complete annihilation!  As a gay Atheist, whom YHWH has not chosen, this sounds good to me!

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January 11, 2009, 9:23 am by dc-agape.

I am overwhelmed!  The response (in number of hits) to the first part of this Biblical topic was significant.  I have obviously found a topic special to someone!  I had planned to stop this series with this post: the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth that Jesus describes.  But there are three other topics that belong in the series on hell: the lake of fire, the second death, and Hades.  I was hoping not to delve into Revelations quite so soon, but the masses have spoken.  Since the topic of hell is of great interest to some people out in the neither realms of the web, I can manage to sink into the Book of Revelations.  I will make it a quick skim of the book, but will cover the topics of interest in full.

Right now, though, I want to cover what Jesus describes as the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.  Because you see, Jesus never spoke of the “lake of fire” or the “second death”.  He does speak about Hades, once!  All three of these terms were used by only one writer of the NT, the author of Revelations, either John of Patmos or the Apostle John.  Revelations was most definitely written very close to 95AD, sixty some odd years after the death of Jesus.

Jesus describes a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth a number of times in the Book of Matthew and once in the Book of Luke.  I will break Jesus’ use of the place down into three categories.  The first category will be a place for the wicked.  The second will be a place for those who have pretended to follow his teachings.  The third will reveal that this is a place where Jesus chooses who will be sent there.  This last category is another nail in the coffin of the concept of freewill.

Twice Jesus describes the place of weeping and gnashing of teeth as a place where the wicked will be tossed:

Matt 13:49-50 This is how it will be at the end of the age.  The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and through them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

There will be the fiery furnace, but we know that our bodies and soul will be destroyed in that furnace.  But not just the wicked, the causes of sin will also be thrown out to the place of gnashing teeth:

Matt 13:41-42 The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.  They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Not only will the wicked be thrown into this fiery furnace but so will anything that causes sin!  Now you might think that is Satan, and from the Book of Revelations you would be right.  But it also includes many “christians”.

Jesus describes what type of “christian” will be thrown into the place of gnashing teeth on 3 distinct occasions.  The first description of which “christians” will be thrown out is here:

Matt 24:49-51 But suppose that servant is wicked and says to himself, “My master is staying away a long time”, and he then begins to beat his fellow servants and to eat and drink with drunkards.  The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of.  He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the hypocrites, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Does the servant that beats his fellow servant remind you of anyone?  Does the servant that drinks with drunkards remind you of anyone?  Here Jesus says that the hypocritical “servants” will be thrown in the place of gnashing teeth.  But Jesus does not end there.  He also includes the servants who do not work hard enough:

^{Matt 25:30} And throw the worthless servant outside, in the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Notice that this place of gnashing of teeth is darkness.  How can a fiery furnace be a place of darkness?  Are there two places of gnashing teeth?  Does a fiery furnace burn darkly?  Maybe only the servants of Jesus that do no amount of work are thrown into the darkness!  They are not the hypocrites, but they are the ones that believe that faith alone will save them.

In the Book of Luke, Jesus takes another stab at those who claim to be TrueChristianTM.  This is the story of the Narrow Door.  People will claim to have eaten, drank, and taught with and for Jesus.  But Jesus will not know them, he will call them evildoers.  And he will put them in a place where they can watch, but not partake, of the kingdom of God.  This one has no fiery furnace, no place of darkness, but it is still a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.  I do believe we have a fourth hell!  Can there be four different places that Jesus will send people?  Remember the angels get sent to a gloomy dungeon.

At the beginning of this post I alluded to the nail that will close the coffin of freewill.  I am sure that this is not my last attempt to describe freewill from the Christian point of view in the Word of God.  But this verse is certainly a lulu:

Matt 22:13-14 Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’  “For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

This is the Parable of the Wedding Banquet.  One of the invited guests did not meet the standards that the king had chosen.  Unfortunately, this guest was never told about those standards, but he had been invited.  It is clear that the king is the one who chooses who will be accepted.  It is also clear that those requirements are not specified to the “guests”.  It is like an invisible boundary, you can’t see it, but you can’t step over the line. 

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January 4, 2009, 10:32 am by dc-agape.

Oddly enough, the Old Testament does not have a reference to hell.  YHWH only punishes people, cities, tribes, and nations here on earth.  Nowhere does the Word of God describe sending people to hell until the New Testament. In the New Testament two people describe hell: Jesus and Peter. 

I will start with Peter, since he only describes hell once:

2^nd Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;

Well for the angels at least, hell seems pretty boring.  I would think that being locked up in gloom for all eternity until YHWH gets around to judging them can’t be that bad.  It certainly does not sound like fire and brimstone. I wonder why Satan does not release them and use them for himself?  Or are these the “good” angels that know that they have sinned and deserve to be punished?  I’m assuming the punishment for “good” angels is less severe than for the evil angels that side with Satan.

Jesus, on the other hand, does describe hell, but only in a few places.  A few more times Jesus warns people of being sent to Hell for certain behaviors.  I want to focus on what hell is really like, so I will not be using the verses that warn about being sent to hell.

Twice Jesus refers to the “fire of hell”.  The first case:

Matt 5:22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.  Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca’, is answerable to the Sanhedrin.  But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

First off, notice that neither Peter nor Jesus capitalize the word “hell”.  Directly from Jesus we know that hell is fiery.  He repeats much the same thing here:

Matt 18:9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.  It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

Bodily mutilation is a common theme for Jesus, but I won’t dwell on that here.  I will cover that when I start reading the Book of Matthew in a few weeks.  Notice again, no capitalization and the fiery part of hell.

In the Book of Mark Jesus gives a little more information about hell:

Mark 9:43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.  It is better for you to enter life with maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.

Here we have the bodily mutilation again, but what is important is that the fire of hell “never goes out”.  Now that sounds really bad.  I guess the angels get off light for their sins!  So it certainly sounds like torment.  Jesus actually gives us a glimpse into hell itself here, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus:

Luke 16:23 In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.

This might have been one of the first verses that caused me to start to wonder about the truth of heaven and hell.  Do good people in heaven always get to watch the torment of people in hell?  Can that possibly be pleasurable to them?  Answering that second question does that make them good, if they watch and don’t do anything about another human’s suffering?  Why would they want to watch, and even knowing that people are suffering seems like torture to me.  But this verse does describe the suffering that people in hell will receive.  In the next verse in the parable, the rich man asks for a drop of water from Lazarus’ finger.  So we do have some idea of what hell is like.  But is it permanent?

Jesus does have something to say about that as well:

Matt 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

The study notes make it quite clear that YHWH is the one who controls hell.  YHWH is the one who destroys both the soul and the body in hell.  Did you know that your body went to hell, not just your soul?  But hell is not permanent!  YHWH does destroy the soul in hell.  Jesus does not say that it is immediate, but he also does not say that we stay in hell until judgment day.

I will make one more post on the topic of hell.  I can only make one more post, unless someone points out verses that describe hell without using the words “hell” or “gnashing”.  The next post on hell will be how Jesus refers to being separated from YHWH. The verses of interest will include “gnashing of teeth”.  This does not exactly describing hell, and it certainly is not the fiery hell of described in this post, but it is what Jesus spoke about that seems to be related to hell.

Updated (February 1, 2009)

The story of Lazarus and the rich man has bothered me since starting this Biblical Topic of Hell.  As I am finishing this topic today, I realized that nowhere else in Gospels or Letter does this story get repeated.  In fact, nowhere else in the Bible is hell described as such a place.  Most of the controversy with this story of Lazarus is over whether it is a true story or a parable.  Here is an excellent example of this controversy at this website.  On the other hand, I have found this site that explains the story of Lazarus and the rich man much better.  At the second site the full Bible is used in its full context, instead of the way this one story is used out of context to describe hell.  There is no doubt that the TrueChristians™ of today need a better understanding of their own Bible. From my gay Atheist interpretation of what the Word of God says all Christian need to focus particularly on the concept of hell.  It would seem that this topic has been ripped out of context from the original teachings of Jesus, Peter, James, Paul, and all the other major figures of the 1^st century Church.

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