My Case for eternal Hell

[Paidion]

Paidion,
Isn't Peter only referring to folks who are already believers when he addresses "the devout"?

Well ... yes. I think so. I don't understand your point.

[steve7150]

The Lord knows [how] to deliver the devout from trials and to keep the unrighteous for a day of judgment to be corrected.





Sorry Paidion i read unrighteous as righteous. Maybe i need stronger reading glasses.

[steve7150]

The Lord knows [how] to deliver the devout from trials and to keep the unrighteous for a day of judgment to be corrected.









However you are right about this verse being significant if the translation "corrected" is accurate or even if punishment is part of a corrective process. It doesn't seem to prove CU in that it doesn't state that all will be corrected but this verse would reveal postmortem repentance.

[Paidion]

It doesn't seem to prove CU in that it doesn't state that all will be corrected but this verse would reveal postmortem repentance.

Maybe so — unless "the devout" and "the unrighteous" are collectively exhaustive.

[Paidion]

A bit more which I discovered about "κολασις" (kolasis)!

Children and the sick and insane have opinions which no sensible man would discuss, for these persons do not need argument, but the former time in which to grow up and change, and the latter medical and official κολασις. (Eudemia Ethics 1.1214b)

It appears from the above, that Aristotle is saying that the medical establisment (at least the mental health department) administered κολασις. They would hardly administer κολασις out of revenge or punishment (in the sense of giving the patients what they deserve). It seems they administered something that brought discomfort to the patients but which worked toward their healing or to hasten their healing.

Now there is a difference between punishment (τιμωρια) and κολασις. Κολασις is inflicted in the interest of the sufferer; punishment (τιμωρια) in the interest of him who inflicts it, that he may obtain satisfaction. (Rhetoric book 1 chapter 10)

Aristotle clearly distinguished between the meaning of the two words. "Κολασις is inflicted in the interest of the sufferer." In other words, it was administered for the suffer's healing. But "τιμωρια in the interest of him who inflicts it, that he may obtain satisfaction." That is one adminsters τιμωρια to get revenge, or to get satisfaction from giving someone "what he deserves."


It seems that in the days of the Macabees, as Homer quoted, the words τιμωρια and Κολασις had become synonyms and were, at least sometimes, used interchangably. Notwithstanding, in the New Testament where the word Κολασις, the author may have chosen that word instead of τιμωρια because he WANTED to bring out the idea of painful healing or correction instead of penalty.

Thus I stand by my translation of 2 Peter 2:9 on the basis that the author may have had in mind "correction" or perhaps even "painful healing" as the above first quote of Aristotle suggests. How does the following sound?

The Lord knows [how] to deliver the devout from trials and to keep the unrighteous for a day of judgment to be painfully healed.

[jriccitelli]

Paidion, 2 Peter 2:9, what about the context?
2:1 … destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction (apóleia) upon themselves. 2 … their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction (apóleia) is not asleep… 4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare (epheisato) the ancient world… when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly; 6 and He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly thereafter.

(Peter has just spoken of who the unrighteous are, and what their end will be. And reminding them of the examples; swift destruction, the Flood, Sodom, reducing to ashes, boy that’s some kind of corrective policy! The Angels that sinned are thrown with the False prophets into the LOF. Isn’t the text speaking here of false prophets? Doesn't 1Pet 4:18 bear some context to this also?)

… 9 and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment…

You may assume the punishment is corrective, or temporal, but still they face the forthcoming Day of Judgment, and ‘correction’ does not really fit into any of the surrounding context, unless we understand as it may well mean; to bring Justice, to correct the injustice by punishing the violators.

10 and especially those who indulge the flesh in [its] corrupt desires and despise authority… like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed (phthoran), reviling where they have no knowledge, will in the destruction (phthoran) of those creatures also be destroyed (phtharesontai)… 17… for whom the black darkness has been reserved… 20 For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and are overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first. 21 For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn away from the holy commandment handed on to them. 22 It has happened to them according to the true proverb, "A DOG RETURNS TO ITS OWN VOMIT," and, "A sow, after washing, to wallowing in the mire."

Better not to have been born, like unreasoning animals to be captured and killed, and then returning to vomit doesn’t sound like much of a case for positive correction.

[Paidion]

Okay, let's look at the context. The most important part of the context is the rest of the sentence:

The Lord knows how to deliver the devout from trials and to keep the unrighteous for a day of judgment to be painfully healed, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority. Bold and wilful, they are not afraid to revile the glorious ones, whereas angels, though greater in might and power, do not pronounce a reviling judgment upon them before the Lord.

Who needs to be painfully healed any more that those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority, those who are bold and wilful,l and revile the glorious ones?

God is a healer; God is a restorer. All of God's judgments are remedial. God's purpose of the ages is that everyone will come under the authority of Christ, worship Him, and confess Him as Lord

Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:8-11)

[Homer]

The Lord knows how to deliver the devout from trials and to keep the unrighteous for a day of judgment to be painfully healed, and especially those who indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority.

Paidion, you are quite the fanciful translator! Could you explain why those who "indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority" are especially to be blessed with this imagined "painful healing"? In your sysytem do they receive a blessing ordinary sinners do not receive?

[jriccitelli]

Okay, let's look at the context. The most important part of the context is the rest of the sentence:

The context is the rest of the sentence? It says they are like unreasoning animals to be captured and killed, and like the animals, will also be captured and destroyed (?).
No matter what you understand kolazomenous to mean in 2Peter2:9, kolazomenous is being done while the unrighteous are being held, or kept for the day of judgment. The phrase is mirroring the proceeding phrase in 2:4; For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;
Nothing in the whole chapter refers to restoring the ungodly and corrupt, they are all assured that they will be held, Judged and destroyed. The contrast is with Noah, Lot and seven others who were ‘righteous’. The whole point being God will rescue the righteous, and destroy the unrighteousness.

Even if you think 2Peter has questionable canonship, you cannot change the words.

[Paidion]

Paidion, you are quite the fanciful translator! Could you explain why those who "indulge in the lust of defiling passion and despise authority" are especially to be blessed with this imagined "painful healing"? In your sysytem do they receive a blessing ordinary sinners do not receive?

I'll by glad to do so—though it's not my "system" but God's "system" to work toward the reconcilation of all things (including all people) to Himself (Col. 1:20).

It is not that these sinners are "especially to be blessed" but rather, as the text states: "especially to be kept for a day of judgment to be painfully healed." I'm not sure why you would call this a blessing unless you mean it is a blessing to be healed at all. If that is what you mean, I agree.

I take it that those particular sinners need this painful healing more than "ordinary sinners."— perhaps a greater degree of discomfort is necessary for them, as is the case of physical healing here on earth. Cancer, for example seems to requires painful chemotherapy or radiation in order that the patient have any chance of getting well, whereas less serious ailments may be treated with much less painful means.

Thus this is where the "especially" of 2 Peter 2:9 comes in.

I suppose one could ask another "especially" question. In what sense Jesus is the Saviour of all people, especially of those who believe? (Tim 4:10) If He saves all people, in what way are believers especially saved? I suggest it may be that they will not have to undergo correction, or at least not to the same degree, as those who don't believe (entrust themelves to the Saviour).