RV wrote:If you have faith in Jesus, you don't perish, if you don't have faith in Jesus, you do perish.
Actually, I fully agree with this statement, when it is interpreted according to the Biblical meaning of "perish" or "is destroyed". Our faith in Jesus is "our part" in coöperating with the enabling grace of God to deliver us from sin, made possible by the supreme sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
I invite you to consider how “destroy” is sometimes used in the scriptures as shown in the following passage from I Peter 1:3-7
Praise be the God and Father of the Anointed Lord Jesus, who, in keeping with His great mercy has regenerated us for the purpose of a living hope, through the resurrection of the Anointed Jesus from the dead, into an incorruptible and undefiled inheritance reserved in heaven for you, who, by the power of God are guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time. In this you exult, yet for a little while, if necessary, grieving in various trials in order that the testing of you of the faith, very valuable, gold being destroyed through fire, yet being tested, may be found for praise and glory and honour at the revealing of Jesus the Anointed.
Peter compared either his readers or their faith, to gold being destroyed by fire. Now we all know that pure gold cannot be destroyed by fire. It can be melted, but cannot be destroyed (in the usual sense of the word). What then, did Peter mean? Did he not mean that gold in its original form (gold ore) can be destroyed by fire so that the pure gold can come forth? Was he not referring to the refining process? When we undergo various trials, our very characters can be refined.
But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner‘s fire and like fullers’ soap. Malachi 3:2 RSV
Both fire and soap can purify. That is what the Lord can do for a person, and sometimes He does it through trials.
Someone may object that some translations refer to gold as being “perishable” in I Peter 3:7, and again in verse 18, where Peter clearly speaks of gold being perishable.
1 Peter 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers.
However,Peter used a different word from that which he used in verse 7. The word is better translated as “corruptible”. The Greek word is the adjective “phthartos” which is derived from the verb “phtheirō”. The Online Bible Lexicon gives the following note for the latter word:
In the opinion of the Jews, the temple was corrupted or "destroyed" when anyone defiled or in the slightest degree damaged anything in it, or if its guardians neglected their duties.
So gold can be corrupted in this sense, it can be scratched or dirtied, or altered in other ways. But pure gold cannot be “destroyed” in the usual sense of “destroy”, at least not by fire.
So it will be with those who endure the refining fires of Gehenna. It is meant to refine those who will go there (or be in that state). All of God's judgments are remedial! Praise God!
