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NASB | Hebrews 11:40 because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us they would not be made perfect. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Hebrews 11:40 because God had us in mind and had something better for us, so that they [these men and women of authentic faith] would not be made perfect [that is, completed in Him] apart from us. |
Bible Question:
So might I solicit your response to all the major points of this discussion, especially toward reconciling 2 Pet 3:10 with the few other verses as cited? How can you take Peter's statement in any other way but literal? With that assumption, how do you reconcile the rest of EdB's position? Take your time in responding if you need it. It's a tough topic. God bless you for being brave enough to participate. I'm still hoping to see other folks respond with their contribution to the discussion. |
Bible Answer: Hello everyone, I might begin by asking if, in light of a literal interpretation, you (the literalist) would also agree with a literal view of the eternity of Hell. My point is this: If one is given to literal flames, he cannot last for an eternity in such a physically literal situation. Perhaps I am mistaken, but I gather that you are vouching for a literal, physical Hell, right? I am not sure how this can be reconciled against scripture, for serveral different reasons: 1) The biblical writers never intended their words to be taken literally. Take Jude for example. In verse 7 he desribes Hell as an eternal fire, and then three verses later, in verse 10, he calls it the blackest darkness. Matthew uses the same two images of Fire and Darkness at different times as well. Surely these can not be coexistent in a literal hell. 2) A physical fire would only be effective on physical beings with physical nerve endings. If we look to Mt. 25:41 however, we see an eternal fire created for... Satan and his angels. This certainly cannot be a physical fire made for a spiritual being. It is rather a sort of "spiritual fire," the common metaphor for God's punishment upon the wicked. 3) Every New Testament description of both heaven and hell are symbolic accounts, not literal snapshots of furniture and living quarters. Take any verse in Revelation and this can be applied. John never intended to communicate that the great and aweful things that he was describing were literal, as if he could comprehend all that he was seeing. The NT writers did exactly what any of us would do when asked to describe hell; they picked the worst thing they could think of and described it exponentially. Steven King could make heaven a lot better sounding and hell a lot worse sounding than what the bible makes it out to be, because he would take what is meaningful to us and what would impact us to descibed it. 4) In ancient times, writers often used strong words, symbolically to underscore their point. Take Jesus: does he really want us to literlly hate our families, gouge out our eyes, and let someone else bury our family memebers when they die, or were these symbols used in order to prove his point? The majority of people (except for one rabbinic school) understood sybolism, hyperbole, and allegory as the most popular forms of communication in the first century. Whether one was speaking of discipleship, the church, Jesus, or heaven/hell, symbolism and metaphor were the way to go if they wanted to effectively express their point. As you might have noticed, I believe that the bible speaks metaphorically about heaven and hell, and I think that Peter falls in line with all other NT authors and should be taken as metiphorical. I know that I am the minority here, but I will do my best to answer any questions that this may raise. Ischus |