Originally posted by duecer
Identify the pagan influence that altered the New Testament Greek text of [b]Rev. 20:10 to read " ... and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever".
no need to bother, the context of that scripture is that supernatural beings, ie. the devil and the demons willbe tormented, not people. In this I am in agrrement with the JW's, as are many denominations[/b]
========================================
no need to bother, the context of that scripture is that supernatural beings, ie. the devil and the demons willbe tormented, not people. In this I am in agrrement with the JW's, as are many denominations
========================================
I think there is the need to bother. You see many people cry "pagan enfluence" about things which they do not believe in the New Testament.
The Person we have to blame, for a concept of eternal punishment, in the New Testament, is for the most part
Jesus Christ. It is important to realize that the same mouth which spoke such words of grace, mercy, pardon, longsuffering, patience, restitution, and reconciliation, also spoke the sternest warnings against unbelief.
The same wonderful and authoritative mouth spoke of
both matters.
But now to your comment:
1.) The fact that the Devil is an angelic and supernatural being, does no help to deny perdition. And this is because the human rebels in
Matthew 25:41,46 clearly depart to the same place:
"Then He will say also to those on the left, Go away from Me, you who are accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." (v.41)
"And these shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." (v. 46)
As you can see the cursed people in this passage go away into that which has been
"prepared for the devil and his angels".
They follow their leader and co-partake of their leader's miserable fate.
This should be enough to prove that saying the Devil is a supernatural being, is not sufficient reason to exempt cursed human condemned sinners to the same punishment.
2.) Though the Devil is a supernatural being, the beast and the false prophet in Revelation 20 are human.
In saying this, I do not deny that something larger than an individual man is represented sometimes by a
beast in Revelation. However:
Certain actions indicate an individual man:
1.)
".. one of his heads was as it were slain to death, and his death stroke was healed." (Rev. 13:3) This is written concerning not the entire beast but one of his heads.
And since we are told that of the seven heads
"are seven kings" (17:10) we can conclude that
heads of the beast refer to human kings.
2.) The beast in
Revelation 17 is interpreted by John, at least in this instance, as the individual human king (one of the heads):
"And the beast who was and is not, he himself is also the eighth and is out of the seven and goes into perdition." (v.11)
As you can see there is an equating of
the beast here with the
"eighth" king. And he is out of the seven.
Without going into a fuller interpretation of these matters, it should be enough to see that
beast and one of its
heads are equated as an individual human king in
Revelation 17
So saying the beast is cast into the lake of fire in chapter 20 makes perfect sense that John is speaking of the casting of a human king into the lake of fire.
3.)
Revelation 17:14 says
"These will make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, for He is Lord of lords and KIng of kings ..."
The
"These" who make war with Christ the Lamb, are human kings
(v.10). And the beast to whom they have given their authority to in one hour is among them.
This renders it perfectly logical that the beast being cast into the lake of fire in chapter 20, is a human king among other human kings who happen to make war with the Lamb Christ in the end times.
4.) Other indications which prove the beast is regarded in some places as an individual king:
The dragon gave his authority to the beast (13:4). This should remind us of Satan attempting to give authority over the world to Jesus, an individual man, in the temptations in the wilderness.
The world says
"Who is like the beast? And who can make war with him?" (13:4) "make war with HIM" sounds like an individual person. Otherwise it would probably have said
who can make war with THEM or IT.
Rev. 13:5 says that he opened
HIS MOUTH -
"And there was given to him [the beast] a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies". This sounds like an individual person.
Rev. 13:5 says
"authority was given to HIM". This also sounds like the beast is an individual person in this passage.
Verse 6 -
"And he opened his mouth for blasphemies against God ...". This too sounds like an individual mouth of an individual evil person.
Verse 7 -
"And [permission] was given to him tp make war with the saints and to overcome them ..." This sounds like an individual evil king.
Verse 8 -
"And all those dwelling on the earth will worship HIM". This indicates the beast is here to be interpreted as an individual person.
And so much the more because Paul concerning the
son of perdition, and individual
man of lawlessness "Who opposes and exalts HIMSELF above all that is called God or an object of worship, so that HE SITS in the temple of God, setting HIMSELF forth, saying that HE is God. ( See 2 Thess. 2:3,4 my emphasis}
Paul also says
"he might be revealed in his own time" (2 Thess. 2:6) That is this
"MAN of lawlessness" and this particular
"son of perdition". This is a MAN who demands the worship of the world, sits in the temple of God, is an evil and rebellious king, and who with other kings makes war with God's saints and with the Lamb of God directly in His descent to earth.
Trying to make
beast strictly refer to a conglomerate or an abstract collective will simply not work. A MAN is cast into the lake of fire with the Devil.
I will not go through now a similar excercise with the
false prophet. But these two are human beings.
Now, in
Revelation 20:15 we are told
"And if ANYONE was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire."
I don't know why we should expect a different result for them as for the devil, the beast, and the false prophet. At least we are not explicitly told there is any reason to expect that they have a different experience.
God is great. And God has many avenues of ways to deal with us which will surprise us probably. However, it is clear to me that this severest of punishments is part of the Bible's revelation.
You must expect that Jehovah's Witnesses really like to go back to the Old Testament. They seek all kinds of refuge and excuses from New Testament revelation by appealing to Ecclesiastes, Proverbs and other Old Testament books. It is not wise to be led astray by false teachings trying to find escape hatches in Old Testament passages for totally clear and unambigious New Testament proclamations.
Sins
07 Jan '11 17:43
Back to Top