What is the lake of fire? Is it Gehenna? Hell? Literal? Metaphor?

Hell was thought to be the receiving place of the dead, in the center of the earth where Jesus went for 3 days after he died. Fire was symbolic of the cleansing of the soul, the bad was taken off but the soul was saved. There is interesting information in the dictionary of the old Bibles like ones from the 1800's that you won't find in the newer Bibles.

Well, there is a lake of fire in a volcano that I saw on a documentary

You are probably to young to remember, but there was a time when Lake Erie and the Cuyahoga River were so polluted that the river and parts of the lake would spontaneously combust.

They viewed fire as complete destruction or just gone. They had fire burning out side Jerusalem 's walls that they threw in garbage and criminals who they thought had no hope of a resurrection. The early Jews had no hell fire after death thing. "the wages of sin was death" or what God told Adam "for dust you are and to dust you will return" the hell fire came into Christianity by pagans who believed in a scary underworld of demons and suffering and fire. If a soldier was not courageous in battle he would have to go there. Kept the men courageous. Just like the Easter bunny and the Christmas tree it came into Christianity by pagans.

It has to be that it is not literal as it is spiritual, not physical. But we do say things like, 'my heart burns for you' or 'that just burns me up!' even though there is no real fire. Evil burns to do more evil. Perhaps that is what it means. what do you think?

According to the Bible:

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rev%2...

- the "lake of fire" is the "place" of eternal punishment for the wicked, what Christians typically call "Hell" (but note that some Christians use "Hell" in a different sense)

- the "lake of fire" is definitely symbolic. It symbolizes "the second death" ("the first death" being the death we know, the physical death of our mortal bodies). However, according to the Bible the "lake of fire" has these non-symbolic characteristics

- - - those sent to the "lake of fire" suffer eternal torment

- - - Satan and those who "fail" the Final Judgment will be sent to the "lake of fire"

The Greek ge en na is used as a symbol of eternal destraction.

"Hell" translated from the Hebrew sheol and the Greek haides, refers to the common grave of dead mankind.

When Satan destroys your soul

an imaginary punishment for imaginary crimes against an imaginary god......

HELL!

"and the death and the hades were cast to the lake of the fire -- this is the second death" - Rev 20:14 YLT

Nothing has plagued the church doctrinally since the time of Christ like what happens after death. Our obsession with it has driven us to create all sorts of silly things from the left behind books (and unfortunate films), to the scarier, better acted versions like the omen.

The funny thing is, they both have a single strand connecting them too. Fear. Whether the fear is that you'll be left behind to be eternally molested by demons or of some mythical "antichrist" (as an individual rather than a religious spirit) the point is that it is still driven by fear. And here's what we must understand.

Anything of fear, is not of Abba. A simple phrase to keep in your mind while you navigate texts like the one we're talking about in your question.

So what to do with this "second death".

There's no shortage of teaching out there about how gays, the divorced, anyone who has sex before marriage will go to hell, because after all, God is going to destroy them in the lake of fire!

Well, not really.

Partly because there is no literal "lake" of fire - this is a shining example of local vernacular entering the text and modern readers having no idea what it means. "Lake of fire" is synonymous with a local body of water. A lake (if we really believe a fisherman wrote this book) then is a body of water that either feeds into or is fed into by a river. It makes sense then that the writer, obviously of Jewish heritage (and sadly still holding to some of his old eschatology) and also well acquainted with local geography would employ a term like "lake". He knew Daniel's prophecy, who didn't (sort of like the book we're discussing). People outside christianity know revelation. Sad too. But that's beside the point. Daniel 7:10 tells us that there's a "river of fire" flowing from his presence. Well, geographically speaking then, the river's source - where it flows from - must also be fire. And it must be a source large enough to feed a river.

God is the lake of fire.

Don't smash your computer screen, or send me hate mail. It's the truth.

Throughout the Old Testament we find reference to the manifest presence of God being fire, the Israelites believed they couldn't see God and not be "consumed", Moses saw his back and "shined like the sun", and his presence struck Paul blind. What does that mean? Light, heat, fire. A fire so intense that it blinds all that try to look upon it with mortal eyes. Or so they thought anyways.

Now let's deal with what is actually being thrown into the lake of fire here - into the very presence of God, a place where we "will all be salted with fire" as Jesus said. The reason I chose the YLT version here, is that it does something rightly that we don't see in the other translations.

-The death.

-The hades.

-Those are what are cast into the lake of fire.

The author then goes into what he thinks he is seeing in his mystical journey. Please understand that. This is what he thought he saw and tried to interpret the best way possible. This is not a literal, historically factual book, neither is it an end times manifesto. It is an angry Jew/Christian dealing with the death and destruction he sees around him and processing that the Church seems to be doing nothing about it. It is typical posthumous "prophecy" about God getting his vengeance. This is where we find the Jewish eschatology shining through in the authors words.

Regardless, there are more things the author is seeing cast into this lake of fire-which we've wrongly interpreted as hell...and some other things we need to discuss.

-Anyone who's name isn't written in the "lamb's book of life" (hint: the ONLY name in that book is the Lamb).

-the devil who had deceived them (the YLT reads "is deceiving them" actively) - "Jesus has defeated him who held the power of death, that is the devil." - Paul

-the beast. (hint: the same beast from Daniel's prophecy).

and here we go with the western church's favorites (taken from the YLT).....

-fearful

-unstedfast

-abominable

-murderers

-whoremongers

-sorcerers

-idolaters

-all the liars

So here is what we typically read, but don't say this way because....well, I really don't know why.

-Anyone who acts afraid is going to hell.

-Anyone who waivers is going to hell.

-Anyone who I don't like is going to hell.

-Those who killed my Jewish kin are going to hell (Rome).

-Anyone who hangs out with prostitutes is going to hell (sorry Jesus).

-Anyone who practices sorcery - oops, it's φαρμακεύς pharmakeus - where we get Pharmacist. Sorry doctors and health care people, you're going to hell.

-Anyone who worships anything but God - this includes paying homage to sports teams and doing anything other than worship on the worship day. You're going to hell.

-Anyone who's ever lied. Including preachers who fudge a story to make a point, you're going to hell.

See what happens if we read that wrong?

So let's read it correctly shall we?

-Fear will be cast into His presence and turned into faith.

-Unsteadfastness will be will be cast into His presence and turned into faithfulness.

-Behavioral issues will be cast into His presence and turned into perfection.

-Murder will be cast into His presence and turned into life.

-Lust will be cast into His presence and turned into love.

-Sickness will be cast into His presence and turned into health.

-Idolatry (of anything, including the bible) will be cast into His presence and turned into true worship.

-The lie will be cast into His presence and turned into the truth.

And it all comes back to this passage.

That somehow, we've read this wonderful truth that in the end, all that destroys us now will itself be destroyed as "God will kill you if you don't believe". I think nothing is further from the heart of one that Jesus called "Abba, Father". Nothing is further from the heart of one that stood in the beginning, declared the end from the beginning, looked out into the eons of time and said...

It.

Is.

Good.

It's good. And the One who said that is the one who holds you, keeps you, never lets you go. You will pass through the fire, but not be burned - because He is with you, not because there's no fire, but because he's in the fire.