-Removed-I'm not sure any of this has to be, or are metaphors. John is seeing into the
spiritual world, for all we know these are exactly what he saw. So I take it as is, this
is just what John saw and wrote about.
The thing is we have seen evil in this world, wickedness, selfishness and all of those
that are NOT changed into something good through Christ remain as they are. We
must be born again, born of God's Spirit, or remain as we are no matter what song
and dance we do here. Its an eternal kingdom there will not be the opt out death
from it, there will not be opting someone else out either. So if God hasn't done
a great work within you, you will not be moving into the eternal Kingdom of God.
-Removed-"What a desperately sad doctrine of death it is that you cling to."
Actually I can think of nothing greater. Every sin Jesus paid for, every debt we have
before God are all taken care of from the very worse of us to the best so that we
are all cleaned through Christ. This takes away all of our failed efforts to please
God on our own, it takes away all of our self righteousness, we can rely on Jesus.
I think the only way you could look at this as anything other than a good thing is
that you think we are the good guys here and God is bad, when the truth is God
is the standard for good, He is Love, and we reveal how wicked we are by how
much we despise Him.
-Removed-Yes.
When there is something in the bible that you agree with, it's literal
When there is something in the bible that you disagree with, it's a metaphor.
It's clear Dive that you don't want to believe in hell, despite the fact many warnings are given about it, even from Jesus.
-Removed-I already answered.
If someone likes what a specific verse or verses say, it's literal.
If someone dislikes the message, then they either dismiss it, or convince themselves it's a metaphor.
In your case Dive, you do not want to believe in hell, so you will continue to argue against any scripture that deals with hell.
"Go and sin NO more".
Real or metaphor?