B.W. wrote:
Note the phrase "thou shalt surly die" read in Hebrew like this —“but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely DIE!!! Die!" The actual translation uses the word, die, twice — not once but twice.
Actually it's more like “A death thou shall die!” Adam was not made immortal! He was corruptible flesh! God never cursed Adam's body, he was removed from the garden and kept from the tree of life. With out the tree of life, man dies!
Gen 3:22 Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now,
he might stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"--
Gen 3:24 So He drove the man out; and at the east of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim and the flaming sword which turned every direction
to guard the way to the tree of life.
B.W. wrote:
Book of Revelation speaks of this second death being in the lake (G3041) of fire. Even in the beginning God himself pronounced his judgment and warning and you deny this — amazing!
Actually it's more like a pond of fire!
Strongs G3041
λίμνη
limnē
lim'-nay
Probably from G3040 (
through the idea of the nearness of shore);
a pond (large or small): - lake.
Probably from G3040? What is G3040? Let's look?
Strongs G3040
λιμήν
limḗn; gen. liménos, masc. noun.
A haven, harbor, port
This is weird don't you think? Some kind of pond or harbor near the shore? A haven?
Anyway, you are mistaken in what the Book of Revelation speaks. Just as you are mistaken in the belief that Adam was made immortal. Revelation is a spiritual book of symbols.
What is the second death spoken of in Rev. 2:11? It is regarded by the some churches as the "second bodily death", or annihilation of being and the final destiny of the incorrigible sinner. Most Christians believe in a Hell of endless death that never, never dies or at least a "Death that there is no resurrection from". The term SD is found only four times in scripture
Rev.2:11; 20:6; 20:14; 21:8. The lake of fire and brimstone is spoken of, as Rev. 14:10; 19:20; 21:8 and Ias30:33. These words in the 14th,19, 29 and 21st chapters of Rev. are applied alike to all enemies of God and man. They state that sinful man, sinful spirit beings, sinful condition, false teachers and false government are all equally subjected to the action of the Lake of Fire. They do not say that the Lake of Fire
CAUSES the second death, nowhere! Is there a deeper meaning here? This doctrine of the SD is in REV.
The BOOK OF SYMBOLS.
Nowhere does the Bible warn man to beware of the SD, yet this seems to be a strange omission of God if there exists such an impending danger to His human creation. For four thousand years, God did not tell the world anything about a "Second Death". Moses and the prophets did not declare it; the apostles did not set it forth; Jesus did not even refer to it, or teach it, and Paul shuns any mention of it.
Some people think that Paul “hints” at it in his letter to the Hebrews, but the brave out-spoken apostle never confines himself to “hints” about any great truth, and he emphatically states that he “shunned not to declare the whole counsel of God.” The “whole counsel of God” certainly ought to include the annihilation to man, or an endless life of torment for him. Such a dreadful penalty should in all justice be very plain and clearly set forth so that man could avoid it.
But NO! It is left for the symbolic revelation of Patmos to make known this phenomenon and give a mystic warning against continued rebellion toward God. And strange to say, these same Revelations tell us that this symbolic Second death is a beneficent agent of God which actually destroys man's greatest enemies, Death and the Grave, in the same Lake of Fire.
God's definition of the
FIRST death is “To be carnally minded” Rom. 8:6. For example, Jesus said “Let the (living) dead bury their (physical) dead ones”. Matt. 8:22 All were dead because of sin in them, and Paul says “she that liveth in pleasure (of sin) is DEAD while she liveth”. 1 Tim. 5:6. The carnally minded are dead to righteousness and God, and alive unto sin, sin when it is finished bringeth forth (physical) death. James 1:15. The body is dead because of sin, Rom. 8:10 and Gen. 2:17. “A death thou shalt die” is fulfilled. Although physically alive, they are dead, Eph. 2:1, just as God said. An impending death reigns over them in life, and finally consumes their bodies in the grave, but God gives ALL creation the word of hope when He declares that the second death destroys death (all death) and therefore all death conditions; that is, sin and the grave; for death is swallowed up in victory and the whole creation shall be brought in the glorious liberty of the sons of God. The second death destroys the cause and the effect of the First death; destroys it in man, and destroys it in the earth; for there shall be NEW heavens (ruling powers) and a NEW earth (worshipping people) wherein dwelleth righteousness.
If dying to God is the First death, then reversing the process and dying unto sin might well be called a “second” death. And “he who has died (to sin) is free from sin. No man dies to sin save by the burning baptism of the Holy Spirit, and the fire which Jesus came to cast into the earth. Matt. 3:11, Luke 12:49.
Malachi 3:2,3 gives us a picture of the fire necessary to purify and finish the sons of Levi (the ecclesia), and Rev. 14:9-11 gives us a symbolic picture of the lake of fire and brimstone, and the class of sinners that are cast into and are to be tormented in that fire.
Jesus plainly stated that every one shall be salted with fire, Mark 9:49,, and fire is always the destruction of something, or death of some kind. What then is destroyed in the Lake of Fire, or what dies in the second death — is it sin or the sinner? Search beneath the surface (or dig) for His treasures. Prov. 2:4. Jesus said He came to cast fire in the earth, and that it was “already kindled”. Luke 12:49. Was this fire to burn up sinners, or to purge away their DROSS, and take away all their “tin” (alloy). Isa. 1:25. See Hebrew.
Let us bear in mind it is SIN that God condemns and will destroy, but Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, 1Tim l:15, and make an end to sin, Dan. 9:24 (Rotherham). “He appeared to put away sin”, etc. Heb. 9:26. Does our Lord fail in his mission? No! Isa. 42: 1-7. The Lamb of God would not be “satisfied with the travail of his soul” (Isa. 53:11) until He taketh away the sins of the WORLD, not of the “righteous”, or believers only. 1 John 2:2; 4:14; Eph. 1:10, Col. 1:20, Rev. 5:13.
If everyone shall be salted, or tested and tried with FIRE (1 Cor. 3: 13-15), it is plain that thus every one must die to sin, or have sin burned out of their hearts in this present age, or the age that is yet to come. The Elect church dies to sin, and all dross is burned away in the refining fire which God speaks of in Malachi 3: 2-3, during the Gospel age, for judgment begins at the house of God, 1 Peter 4:17, in a refining furnace, for they also are purified by fiery trials. The Lake of fire is a SYMBOL to signify the fiery trial or judgments of the whole world. Another picture of the Lake of fire is found in Zeph. 3:8,9, where the final outcome of it all is plainly stated; that “ALL peoples may call upon the name of the Lord and serve Him with one consent”.
The unbelieving world is “cast into” (or compelled to go into) the Lake of fire and brimstone” which burns out by the Great Tribulation” (Rev. 7:14) every sin and everything adverse to God and His holy kingdom; “when the judgments of the Lord are in the earth, the inhabitants will learn righteousness. Isa. 26:9.
Adam, the great head, and father of the race of natural man, by his disobedience, lost his unity with the Creator, and was forbidden the Tree of Life. Thus he died unto God, and became alive unto sin, and “Sin reigned unto death”. Rom. 5:21; 7:5. Being cut off from the source of life, he began to die physically, and having no life within himself, he could only give to his posterity the results of sin, which was a carnal mind, bodily death, and the dust of the grave. Thus sin entered into the world, because all died (to God) in Adam and physical death followed sin. Rom. 5:12. The First death resulted in the grave, but the Second Death destroys Death. Rev. 20:14, 1 Cor. 15:26. If we can believe that this is really true, we will also see that the second death undoes the work of the first death, and if being carnally minded (Rom. 8:6) is death, then it follows that the second death destroys the carnal mind and all its works. The first death makes a grave, but the second death destroys the grave. Hosea 13:14, Rev. 20:14. The grave can only be destroyed or abolished by every human being having attained unto everlasting life. As in Adam all died (to God), even so in Christ shall all be made alive (to God). Not only made alive in Christ, who gives Spiritual life, or “The life that is Life Indeed”. 1 Tim. 6:19, New Version.
Adam was the head of the race for generation; Christ is the head of the race for regeneration. As seeds, the two heads contain the two crops. “All that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live”. They hear first and afterwards live. Adam was a son of God, with all that that relationship implies; that all Adam's children are children of God. Children astray indeed, but children nevertheless, who must be sought and found by Him who came to seek and to save the lost. Luke 19:10. All are lost in Adam, and none are found until they are made alive in Christ, which includes the spiritual change called regeneration.
Restoring the natural Adamic life does NOT make any man “alive in Christ”.
Every human being is an offspring of God (Acts 17:24-31) and as such must in the great finalities of the ages come into oneness (or harmony) with the Father, and to this end he must first die to sin, and give up the “husks” of the earth, before he can live unto God, and come into his Father's house, and be clothed, and in his right mind. Luke 15: l1-24, Rom. 6:10-11.
This ultimatum is required of ALL men, and will be obeyed by each “in his own order” (or band). Since Jesus came, the Spirit has been saying to the churches “He that OVERCOMETH” and has died to sin in this age, and has been “bound up in the bundle of Life with the Lord their God, CANNOT be hurt of the SECOND DEATH, nor has the Lake of Fire any power over him. Rev. 2: 11; 20:6 WHY? Because he will have passed through the purifying furnace fire of Mal. 3:2,3 and, like pure, fire-refined gold, there is nothing remaining in him to be burned away.
In other words,
he who judges himself in this age, and is an “overcomer:, will not come into judgment with the world. John 5:25. The first judgment thus brings forth (or results in) life, so all judgment is unto victory of life over death. Matt. 12:20. Isa. 25: 6-8. they who pass through the first judgment as overcomers will come forth in the first resurrection, because they have “passed from death unto life” in this age; for judgment begins at the house of God. Who, then will be judged in the latter judgment and cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, which is the second death? ALL whose names are not found written in the Book of Life. ALL who have not part in the First Resurrection, Rev. 20:6, and ALL who are under the power of Death in any form; for the second death is the death of death, and all death is to be swallowed up of the victory of life. Isa. 25: 6-8; 1 Cor. 15:54 Who dare limit the fullness of these declarations of god, that He is the Saviour of ALL men, and will “reconcile ALL things unto Himself” — whether they be things upon the earth or things in the heavens. Col. 1:20; 1 Tim. 4:10.
Death and the grave were cast into the Lake of Fire, and Rev. 20:14 distinctly says “This is the Second Death”.
Let me ask any thinking Christian if that scripture means that these enemies of mankind, death and the grave, are going to die the second time. You will say NO. Then why be inconsistent enough to insist that it means nothing but a literal death the second time for mankind. By this scripture you may see at once that it is not the number of deaths that God is indicating, but the KIND of death, or character of the destruction.
I notice that writers on this subject who freely give a literal Second Death to human sinners are silent about “death and the grave” going into the SAME punishment, although the Bible boldly declares it.
Let us not treat the word of God deceitfully, but give it a “square deal”. Rev. 20:10 states that the Devil, the Beast, and the False Prophet shall be tormented in the Second Death, or the Lake of Fire and Brimstone. Shall be tormented (in this fire of Death) unto the age of the ages (RV), or until their victory over man is given up, and God becomes All in All 1 Cor. 15:24-28. Rev. 21:8 states that sinners of the human race shall also have their part, or due and proper portion, or share therein, and Rev. 14:9, 11 tells us what happens to them in this burning lake of torment. Rev. 9:6 tells us that “in those days men shall seek death, and shall not find it, and desire to die, and death will fly from them” (Diaglott). This is the “Sorer punishment” than death, spoken of in Heb. 10:29.
[Nothing is said about man dying the second time in this fire, or that it will destroy men's lives, and cause their second death. That interpretation is entirely a “tradition of man”, and is a worthy part of the Hell fire and Torment tradition which still dominates the majority of Christendom. In these scriptures, fire is a symbol, brimstone is a symbol and death also is a symbol, or else all three are literal. One cannot be literal and the others symbolic. Should the second death be construed to mean a literal fleshly, bodily death, then the Lake of Fire would have to be a literal lake, of literal, material fire and literal fire could hardly be used to torment the beast and the false prophet, and the Devil day and night forever, and it could not consume Death and the grave, which are conditions and not persons.
To be continued…
Part 1
