Blogs by Pastor Boggs

In defense of ETC (the concept many embrace of a loving God planning to burn many forever in flames of constant anguish and pain) I had someone earlier today articulate their reasons for believing in this place, while giving correlating passages to back this belief in a previous thread.

First, let me add that these are the same passages that were used to indoctrinate my own young, developing, impressionable mind as a child as well.

Thankfully, as an adult, I have come to see these verses in a whole new light and now have a totally different understanding of them that has opened my eyes to a gospel that actually is good news!

I will start with the 1st verse in this post that is a grandstand for those hanging on to this belief in a forever-burning hell.

“And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
~ Matthew 25:46

First of all, historical context matters here.

Jesus was speaking and warning of an impending doom that was brewing and soon to come in the form of The Armies of Rome surrounding Jerusalem and their temple between 66 and 70 A.D. in an attempt to ethnically cleanse the earth of Jewish people, their priesthood, their lineage, their holy city, and their temple.

Great Judgment came down on the heads of those who were conspiring to arrest and crucify Jesus.

Those whose own forefathers had persecuted the Prophets, who were previously raised up by God to correct the lying scribes and Pharisees.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ Thus, you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell (Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom )?

Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”
~ Matthew 23:30-36 (Jesus)

Jesus said all of these things at the Temple after flipping the tables of the money changers, just before his arrest and crucifixion, called for by the ones he had just called out.

“All these things will come upon this generation.”

As it precisely did within 40 years (one biblical generation) after Jesus said all those horrific things would come.

Secondly, the Greek word aiōnios, found in Matthew 25:46, being translated by many as “Eternal” meaning “Endless Conscious Experience” and used to push the eternal conscious torment view, is also translated by many others as “the age to come,” which begins to change our understanding of this passage and Christ’s words here drastically.

The next word we have to study to be workman-approved by God and able to rightly divide the word of truth (see 2nd Timothy 2:15) is the Greek word kolasis, translated into English as the word pbishment or torture, when that word actually means “Corrective Punishment” or “Judicial Penalty”.

Which does not suggest ongoing eternal torture…

The original Hebrew and early Greek/Aramaic-speaking Christian minds’ understanding of something or someone being “eternally condemned” would have meant for that place or person to be gone forever, as in, to never return.

Like in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah:

“Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.” ~ Jude 1:7

Well, we all know that if Sodom and Gomorrah were still burning eternally, we could Google Earth it and we would assuredly still see it on fire and smoking…

The reason we do not see this is that those 2 cities were destroyed forever, as in to never return again, not being forever destroyed, as poor translations of the Greek words aiōnios (age to come) changed to “Eternal” and kolasis (Corrective Punishment) changed to “Torture” seem to imply in Matthew 25:46.

Look at it like this:

“And these (those who rejected Jesus and conspired with Rome to have him nailed to a cross will come to and end in Romes fiery siege of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.) and will go away at the end of the age for corrective punishment and or their penalty due but the righteous (Those in right standing with God who have believed Jesus and taken his spirit filled words to heart) they will go into the coming age to find fullness of life.”
~ Matthew 25:46 (better translation)

I will end today’s thoughts on that, and if time allows me later, I will tackle a few more of these passages that many like to use to traumatize children and horribly misrepresent Our Father with.