## [14] What the Hell is Gehenna?

Gehenna is the Hebrew word for Hell. Mankind's attempts to understand the nature of Hell are classic examples of how imperfect and incomplete our thought processes are as a race and as individuals. To set the scene we have the Catholic church filling the western world with guilt and fear for 1900 years, by telling us that we would physically fry in hell if we did not join up with them and pay lots of money to the Pope. The majority of our dear brothers and sisters in faith believed this and joined up. Today the Catholic church is physically the world's most successful Christian church with around 900 million members worldwide. The Catholics have given us a Hell of eternal torment, eternal punishment, eternal burning and eternal physical pain. They came to this conclusion from scriptures such as Jesus' parable of the Rich man and Lazarus:

24 So he called and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in this blazing fire.'
25 But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that you received in full your good things in your lifetime, but Lazarus correspondingly the injurious things. Now, however, he is having comfort here but you are in anguish.
26 And besides all these things, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you people, so that those wanting to go over from here to you people cannot, neither may people cross over from there to us (Luke 16).

43 And if ever your hand makes you stumble, cut it off; it is finer for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go off into Gehenna, into the fire that cannot be put out (Mark 9).
We have not researched the precise road that Catholic thinking took, but plainly if one is thrown into a fire that cannot be put out and if one is separated from others by a chasm that one cannot cross, then things are not looking good.

But the thing about being a Christian and about knowing and loving God is this... It is more than an academic understanding of scripture. It is the academic understanding of a book written by the very definition of love. So the book must always reflect God's love. So one Charles Taze Russell, called the man who put the fires out in hell by the US press, the founder of the Watchtower, knowing his father, asked the following type of question:

Would it be fair or just or loving to punish a man into eternity for sins which he committed over a period of a mere 70 years? The conclusion that the founder of the International Bible Students, now known as the Jehovah's Witnesses, came to was this:

A God that would use his power to create human beings, whom he foreknew and pre-destinated should be eternally tormented, could be neither wise, just nor loving. His standard would be lower than that of many men (Kingdom Proclaimers book).

This type of reasoning is the triumph of love over dogma, it is the triumph of wisdom over doctrine. For at first sight the scriptures do appear to support an eternal torturing of the unrighteous, yet Jehovah is the one who makes it rain on the righteous and the unrighteous alike whilst they are alive, and his son advised us to...

44 However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those persecuting you;
45 that you may prove yourselves sons of your Father who is in the heavens, since he makes his sun rise upon wicked people and good and makes it rain upon righteous people and unrighteous (Matthew 5).

When a warm and gentle breeze blows across a Mediterranean beach on a summer evening does it miss out the cheeks of the wicked and only caress the faces of the righteous?

And what kind of a God commands us to love our enemies and pray for our persecutors, only to burn these very same people for an eternity in Hell himself after we have loved them and prayed for them? Would he frustrate the very love he commanded us to show for them?

So Charles Russell taught that death was simply a state of non existence, and that the wicked were switched off and thrown away permanently without pain.

5 For the living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all, neither do they anymore have wages, because the remembrance of them has been forgotten (Ecclesiastes 9).

3 Do not put your trust in nobles, Nor in the son of earthling man, to whom no salvation belongs.
4 His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; In that day his thoughts do perish (Psalm 146).
Jehovah's Witnesses believe this today. But even though Charles Russell's thinking was good, and even though his thoughts moved mankind a step nearer to God's love, the journey to understanding how deep and how true the love of God is, requires a few more paces than he was able to make. Paces of the mind that is. For all our thoughts are imperfect and all our conclusions are incomplete at first. For how we think is how we walk, one step at a time, and this is the brilliance and consistency of our design. The physical being a mirror of the intellectual.

Tell me, does the 'modern artist' who throws paint all over his canvas and then exhibits it in the Tate Modern, actually create art or is he merely demonstrating his high status in the art world by succeeding in having anything he does hung up on a wall?

Well, please brothers and sisters let us not be 'Modern art bible interpreters' in the sense of being sons of the 'Modern artist' who seeks status through arrogance or other abuse rather than perfection through painstakingly hard work. When Mozart wrote his 3rd string concerto did he just pour out the whole score and then present himself with a medal? Or did he rather start with one melody or with one chord sequence or with one orchestration concept or with one musical phrase, and then slowly build it into a masterpiece, rejecting many many ideas and notes and phrases and orchestrations of such a quality that most composers never produce in a lifetime. Indeed if a composer today could just produce one or two of those rejected phrases, perhaps we'd have some music worth listening to! Or if a script writer today could just produce one or two of the phrases that Shakespeare rejected... The scene in the movie Shakespeare in Love when Jo Fiennes throws away the first act of Romeo and Rosaline, felt like a greater tragedy for posterity than the finished play was for its audience. To be denied a masterpiece from the hand of a writer who plainly sought perfection in his work, is to miss out badly. To be denied another piece of modern art, is frankly a relief and an escape.

We must therefore apply the same diligence to refining and refining our biblical interpretations as the great artists of our race have applied to their works of fame. As the Americans say we must correct our understandings, we must re-correct our understandings and then we must do it all again! We must revise and correct and refine them until they become masterpieces, our masterpieces, our Psalms to God, every bit as polished and every bit as perfect in form as a Concerto from Mozart or as a play from Shakespeare. Then we will see God's glory and reflect it to all those with faith and give it back to him. The Lords' Witnesses have therefore become the church of the revised revised revised understanding, and the corrected corrected corrected mistake. We are the church of the corrected corrected and corrected doctrine and of the revised revised and revised dogma. Rather than having Papal infallibility we have constitutional, bordering on institutional, priestly fallibility.

So here is the setting that the Holy Spirit used to grow in us a glimpse of the love that God has for all of his sons and daughters, saints and sinners alike.

The writer was attempting to write a stage musical about the interaction between the heavens and the earth, he wanted to open up the invisible heavens for all to see. As he was doing this we were reaching the end of the first of the two Jubilees in the LWs (a total forgiveness of the sins of all LWs that occurs every 50 months). A certain very young sister came up with the idea that since during a Jubilee, every disfellowshipped (excommunicated) LW had their sins forgiven by God, he would be automatically re-admitted to the congregation by God, and so would not need a baptism from any priest on earth to become clean in the flesh again. We researched this and found it to be true. We then wrote to several ex LWs and told them that due to God's love for them, they were LWs again period without any discussion.

10 And you must sanctify the 50th year and proclaim liberty in the land to all its inhabitants. It will become a Jubilee for you, and you must return each one to his possession and you should return each one to his family (Leviticus 25).

So every possession you have lost (in terms of real estate) is given back, and every slave is freed and returned to his family every 50th year. It doesn't happen today, but it happened 3400 years ago. The Sabbath timetable of the LWs works in months rather than in years see U103.

This unconditional absolute love, independent of any sin, was a bit of a new concept for us. God was saying: Look, I want you in my family period, and I am just not interested at all in how many sins that you may or may not have committed in the past. This amazed the writer, in particular because he had/has very loving parents, but even they got fed up with him when he behaved very badly. Really this was a new type of love for us. It really knocked the writer out.

As a sequel to this, the same young sister, started thinking about why humans are condemned to everlasting death as a result of 70 years of sin (as we understood at the time), but Satan, who sinned in the Garden of Eden and has been sinning for millennia since then was still alive today!

She asked the writer the following type of question: If the first new covenant saints sin against the holy spirit during their baptism period they go to Gehenna right? So how come Satan isn't already there, because he has spent eons sinning against the holy spirit, yet he still lives? We should point out that this line of thought has been a fixation of this young sister's family, especially her father, since their baptism.

Gordon initially thought that the sister was being unrealistic and had watched too many Cinderella movies! Gordon was at that time writing a lament about Satan from God's standpoint for his musical. The chorus started like this:

Its too late to say you're sorry, now the damage has been done,
Its too late to seek forgiveness now the kingdom has begun...

But every time he sang the chorus, which chorus is imagined to be sung by God in the Musical, it just did not feel right. It just was not the sort of thing God would say or sing! So he rewrote it as follows:

Its not too late to say your sorry, for the damage that you've done
Its not to late to seek forgiveness from the highest holy one...

He then burst into tears, because this sounded like the God he was familiar with, this was the God he was singing about. So he then began believing that maybe God watched Cinderella movies too!

When Gordon was studying with the Jehovah's Witnesses, they told him that Adam was not going to be resurrected because Jesus ransomed Adam's kids, but not Adam himself, who had sinned against the holy spirit. This sin put Adam in Gehenna, so that Adam was now switched off permanently and had basically had his chips - he was told. This made Gordon very sad, for he is a firstborn son himself. He could not see how God could just give up on his firstborn son like that after one screw up. Well, the LWs know today that Adam himself is ransomed directly by Jesus, and that this is how his children are saved. God in a sense created this entire world to save Adam. God did not give up on his firstborn son Adam, no. Rather, knowing in advance that Adam would sin, he built a 6400 kilometre radius planet which was eventually populated by 6 billion of his sons in order to save him. So now Gordon asked himself the same question about Satan, who was certainly born before Adam. If God worked out and saw through to completion, a huge and complicated plan to save Adam, his firstborn human son, would he not be able to work out and see through an even more huge and more complicated plan to save Satan, a son born even before Adam? (in fact Satan was God's firstborn angelic son - see I16).

Then the scriptures came flooding in, and the revised corrected thought processes began once more. Doctrinal somersaults were performed, and what was an imperfect and incomplete half interpretation of Gehenna began to approach art itself, even the art of God.

19 But a certain man was rich, and he used to deck himself with purple and linen, enjoying himself according to day (literal) with magnificence.
20 But a certain poor [one] named Lazarus had been thrown towards (used to be put at) his gate, having been ulcerated
21 and desiring to be filled with the things dropping from the table of the rich [one]. Yes, too, the dogs would come and lick his ulcers.
22 Now it occurred [that] the poor [one] died and he was carried off by the angels to the bosom of Abraham. Also, the rich [one] died and was buried.
23 And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, he existing in torments, and he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in the bosoms of him.
24 So he called and said: Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in this blazing fire.
25 But Abraham said: Child, remember that you received in full your good things in your life, but Lazarus correspondingly the injurious things. Now, however, he is having comfort here but you are in anguish.
26 And besides all these things, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you [people], so that those wanting to go over from here to you [people] cannot, neither may [people] cross over from there to us (Luke 16).

Lazarus is in the bosom of Abraham, which means he is going to be resurrected into the Kingdom of God. But the rich man is in Hades and is existing in torments. There is a chasm between Lazarus and the rich man. Now Hades is the common grave of mankind, in scriptural terms Hades is the first death, physical death. So Lazarus and the Rich man are both in Hades, but there is a chasm dividing them. Now a man existing in torment cannot possibly represent a man who is permanently switched off. Existence cannot stand for non existence. So those who are not in the bosom of Abraham are indeed tormented and in anguish. The Rich man is in Hell, which is Gehenna in Hebrew terminology. Gehenna means the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem. This was a rubbish dump which was regularly incinerated. The bodies of criminals were thrown into this dump when they were not considered worthy of a dignified burial. The rich man is being tormented and so is no longer asleep. Lazarus is being comforted and is asked to visit the Rich man, and so is also awake as of course is Abraham who is talking to the rich man. So everyone has been woken up which is their resurrection. The rich man is resurrected out of the first death, the physical death, the unconscious sleep into Gehenna. Lazarus and Abraham are resurrected into the Kingdom of God. Now Jesus advised...

13 But when you spread a feast, invite poor people, crippled, lame, blind,
14 and you will be happy, because they have nothing with which to repay you. For you will be repaid in the resurrection of the righteous ones (Luke 14).

Whereas Paul explains...

15 and I have hope toward God, which hope these [men] themselves also entertain, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous (Acts 24).

So the unrighteous ones, those who are not in Abraham's bosom, still nonetheless get a resurrection. They get a resurrection into torment and anguish. So the Rich man gets the resurrection of the unrighteous and Lazarus and Abraham get the resurrection of the righteous.

Now Jesus says about Hell, Gehenna...

28 And do not become fearful of those who kill the body [the first death] but cannot kill the soul [the second death]; but rather be in fear of him that can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna (Matthew 10:28).

Jesus did not say, fear him who can destroy the spirit in Gehenna. Gehenna preserves the spirit but kills the soul, whether angelic or fleshly. The soul here is the associated angelic body and the body is the human body. So Hell or Gehenna is a soul-less consciousness. Truly it is a non physical prison for disembodied spirits. When the unrighteous die, they enter the first death which is non consciousness as they sleep in an angelic body that they do not own. Then they are resurrected into Gehenna as a soul-less spirit.

19 In this [state] also he went his way and preached to the spirits in prison,
20 who had once been disobedient when the patience of God was waiting in Noah's days, while the ark was being constructed, in which a few [ones], that is, 8 souls, were carried safely through the water (1 Peter 3)

So now we can finally understand what Jesus was talking about when he said...

29 If, now, that right eye of yours is making you stumble, tear it out and throw it away from you. For it is more beneficial to you for one of your members to be lost to you than for your whole body to be pitched into Gehenna [a non corporeal existence, whereby you lose all of your body members].

Obviously it is better to be conscious of the loss of one body member than it is to be conscious of the loss of all your body members. And those in Gehenna are faced with precisely that loss. So no physical pain can be felt in Hell, but emotional and psychological torment and anguish is certainly felt there as they see the people whom they have abused and murdered living in paradise on the outside (as the rich man saw Lazarus). But it appears that you do have a form of timeshare access to body members in Gehenna for the psalmist said...

4 Their idols are silver and gold, The work of the hands of earthling man.
5 A mouth they have, but they cannot speak; Eyes they have, but they cannot see;
6 Ears they have, but they cannot hear. A nose they have, but they cannot smell.
7 Hands are theirs, but they cannot feel. Feet are theirs, but they cannot walk; They utter no sound with their throat.
8 Those making them will become just like them, All those who are trusting in them (Psalm 115).

Now Jesus said when he defined Gehenna:

27 But he will speak and say to you, I do not know where you are from. Get away from me, all you workers of unrighteousness!'
28 There is where [your] weeping and the gnashing of [your] teeth will be, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves thrown outside (Luke 13).

So Gehenna is being thrown outside the kingdom but still 'seeing' those within it.

So , Come on! In true justice, could the true God punish a man for ever as a result of his sinning for 100 years? Would those scales balance? Would that be an eye for an eye? No sir. So eventually one must get out of Gehenna. For otherwise God is being pointlessly cruel and unjust. Gehenna is a place of emotionally painful rehabilitation. A place of weeping and gnashing teeth until one gets sin straight in ones mind and heart. For God will teach us all and eventually he will save us all. He will succeed with all of us, however bad we are at learning. For he has stated through his great prophet Isaiah that:

10 Everything that is my delight I shall do (Isaiah 46).

And his apostle Paul of the second true Christian church said..

21 For since death is through a man, resurrection of the dead is also through a man.
22 For just as in Adam all are dying, so also in the Christ all will be made alive (1 Corinthians 15).

All will conquer death through the Christ, not some, but all of Adam's sons. All those who die in Adam will get life in Jesus. Gehenna is the second death. No son of Adam will languish there eternally. Jesus fixes all of the problems for all of Adam's kids.

And through Jesus' rock (Peter in Greek), the firstling (Peter in Hebrew), Peter, he has stated that:

9 Jehovah is not slow respecting his promise, as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance (2 Peter 3).

So if he does not want any to be destroyed, and if he does everything he wants, then he will indeed save even Satan himself. Putting this another way...

3 This is fine and acceptable in the sight of our Savior, God,
4 whose will is that all men [pantaV anqrwpouV] should be saved and come to an accurate knowledge of truth (1 Timothy 2).

Then we have the Lord's prayer...

Our Father who are in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So he will is going to be done everywhere, and his will is that all men should be saved. End of two pice jigsaw!

But if that is too complex for ye great and holy researchers of the perfect word of God, try this one piece jigsaw...

10 For to this end we are working hard and exerting ourselves, because we have rested our hope on a living God, who is a Savior of all men, especially of faithful ones [but also of unfaithful ones through the sin bin of Gehenna].

QED.

Now we know from 1John 4:8 that God is love. The Hebrew meaning of the name Elisha is: God is salvation. The Hebrew meaning of Yeshua (Jesus' Hebrew name) is Jehovah is salvation. So if God is love and God is salvation, then love is salvation, since equality is transitive. Since God loves us all, however unrighteous our behaviour, he will save us all, for that is what love is.

QED.

Love never fails and we must love our enemies and you cannot love the non existent. Put those together and you see again that everyone will be saved eventually. For love bears all things, love endures all things, even the sort of behaviour that puts us into Gehenna!

QED.

In fact the statement: Love never fails, means that love will succeed with all of us. It means that love will succeed even with Genghis Khan, who will one day become a loving marshmallow like God and he will be saved on that day. It means that love will one day succeed even with Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot. It will succeed with every Hell's angel, every gold digging slapper. Yes, every callous bitch who trampled on love for a few bucks or some meaningless status or worldly security will one day fall into genuine love forever as we all will. Love will succeed with every porno queen who abused the passions of a hundred thousand men, every warmongering politician, every corrupt bureaucrat, every adulterer, every murderer, every paedophile on the list, every paedophile hater, every paedophobe (men who desert their own children, these people may not be on man's sex offenders list but they are certainly on God's) and every paedophobe hater. It means we shall all be saved. Even Ken Livinstone will one day be saved (after apologising to a few million drivers). Yes even Donald Rumsfeld will one day be saved (after apologising to a few million Iraqis). Even the feminists who have destroyed the headship of the husband in the west which has led to all the teenage gang violence. For love never fails. And love's success is our salvation.

So now we can truly understand what Paul was saying in 1 Corinthians 5...

5 You hand such a man over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, in order that the spirit may be saved in the day of the
Lord (1Corinthians5).

The flesh that is destroyed when a man is thrown out of the congregation is the blessing of the ICC, a non adamic human body. For this is the possession of all those with a water baptism. But even the disfellowshipped man, who has no fleshly hope, will have his spirit saved in the day of the Lord, which day is the 1,000 year kingdom of God. It is saved by being kept alive in Gehenna, in a shared body with a mouth that cannot speak and eyes that cannot see and ears that cannot hear, since they are time shared with several other condemned ones, his soul-mates.

The Watchtower argues that no loving parent would hold their son’s hand on a hotplate for a thousand years, so people are not tortured in Hell but simply terminated permanently. The Lords' Witnesses argue that neither would loving parents cause their son to disappear forever. For the former is an abuse of love, and the latter is an absence of love. God suffers from neither. So Gehenna is an external rehabilitation of an emotionally painful type.

It is like Hugh Grant sang in the movie Music and Lyrics: Don't write me off just yet!
And it is like Arnie said in the movie Terminator: I'll be back!

But does his love extend only to his human sons? Hell, No, he has a cunning plan to save even Satan himself. And he will execute it (the plan that is, not Satan), because it shall be his very delight so to do. Because his love knows no bounds at all and it is not only greater than his justice, but is in fact the whole basis of his justice. It is the father of his justice. The relationship between justice and love is exposed by Paul who says:

12 and because of the increasing of lawlessness the love of the greater number will cool off (Matthew 24).

Law, Justice, is the greenhouse in which love grows best. Injustice grows hate, which causes conflict and injury.

And yes, just as the true God created the whole 6400 km radius earth to save his firstborn human son, Adam. Every one of his sons, both angelic and human, will one day realise that he created the whole 15 billion light year radius universe to save his firstborn angelic son, Satan. And then we will all know the invincibility of the love of our father and the lengths to which he is prepared to go to save us. You do not believe it? Your heart cannot see it? You think that is too hard for God? Is his heart not big enough? Do you think that love will conquer everything except Satan? Well then listen to Jesus' words, spoken in response to Peter's weakness. And compare them to the words he used to call Andrew and Peter and the words he used to call his other his disciples...

23 Get thee behind me Satan (Matthew16)
19 Come after me (Mark4)
9 Be my follower (Matthew9)

Literally Jesus was calling Peter a resister, Satan means 'resister'. He was reminding Peter to follow his lead rather than trying to lead himself. But every scripture means more than the literal meaning, for they are all alive and powerful. Jesus was with the same words speaking direcly to Satan. He was telling him to become his diisciple and follow his path to divinity. In fact Jesus was actually about to give a ransom that would save Satan in any event!

So this might be a good time to consider the words of Romeo when he compares non existence to banishment, i.e. when he compares the Hell of Russell (permanent non existence) to the Hell of Ritchie (soul-less exile)...

ROMEO
What less than dooms-day is the prince's doom?
FRIAR LAURENCE
A gentler judgment vanish'd from his lips, not body's death, but body's banishment.
ROMEO
Ha, banishment! be merciful, say 'death', for exile hath more terror in his look, much more than death: do not say 'banishment.'
FRIAR LAURENCE
Hence from Verona art thou banished. Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.
ROMEO
There is no world without Verona walls, but purgatory, torture, hell itself. Hence-banished is banish'd from the world,
and world's exile is death: then banished, is death mis-term'd. Calling death banishment, thou cutt'st my head off with a golden axe, and smilest upon the stroke that murders me.
FRIAR LAURENCE
O deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness! Thy fault our law calls death; but the kind prince, taking thy part, hath rush'd aside the law, and turn'd that black word death to banishment. This is dear mercy, and thou seest it not.
ROMEO
'Tis torture, and not mercy. Heaven is here, where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog and little mouse, every unworthy thing, live here in heaven and may look on her, but Romeo may not. More validity, more honourable state, more courtship lives in carrion-flies than Romeo. They may seize on the white wonder of dear Juliet's hand and steal immortal blessing from her lips, who even in pure and vestal modesty, still blush, as thinking their own kisses sin. But Romeo may not, he is banished. Flies may do this, but I from this must fly. They are free men, but I am banished. And say'st thou yet that exile is not death? Hadst thou no poison mix'd, no sharp-ground knife, no sudden mean of death, though ne'er so mean. But 'banished' to kill me?--'banished'? O friar, the damned use that word in hell. Howlings attend it, how hast thou the heart,
being a divine, a ghostly confessor, a sin-absolver, and my friend profess'd, to mangle me with that word 'banished'?

### You cannot love someone who is permanently dead!

The simplest way to see that no one will die permanently is to read Jesus' command to love even our enemies...

44 However, I say to you: Continue to love your enemies and to pray for those persecuting you (Matthew 5).
27 But I say to you who are listening: Continue to love your enemies, to do good to those hating you (Luke 6).

God is not a hypocrite, so he loves his enemy Satan. But one cannot love someone who is permanently dead. So Satan will never be permanently dead. Indeed why would God command us to love our enemies and then kill them at Armageddon, thereby making it impossible for us to love them? One cannot love a person who will never again be resurrected? The requirement to love everyone means that everyone will be resurrected, and no one will die permanently.

Paul defined love as follows...

Love never fails (1 Corinthians 13:8).

So therefore at what point does God's love for Satan fail? The answer is at no point does it ever fail. He will be saved. God will teach him to conquer his sin. Any less would be a failure of God's love and that is one thing that is impossible.

### The Precise state of those in Hell

28 And do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; but rather be in fear of him that can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna (Matthew 10)

29 If, now, that right eye of yours is making you stumble, tear it out and throw it away from you. For it is more beneficial to you for one of your members to be lost to you than for your whole body to be pitched into Gehenna.
30 Also, if your right hand is making you stumble, cut it off and throw it away from you. For it is more beneficial to you for one of
your members to be lost than for your whole body to land in Gehenna (Matthew 5).

43 And if ever your hand makes you stumble, cut it off; it is finer for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go off
into Gehenna, into the fire that cannot be put out.
45 And if your foot makes you stumble, cut it off; it is finer for you to enter into life lame than with two feet to be pitched into
Gehenna.
47 And if your eye makes you stumble, throw it away; it is finer for you to enter one-eyed into the kingdom of God than with two eyes to be pitched into Gehenna (Mark 9).

19 But a certain man was rich, and he used to deck himself with purple and linen, enjoying himself from day to day with magnificence.
20 But a certain beggar named Lazarus used to be put at his gate, full of ulcers
21 and desiring to be filled with the things dropping from the table of the rich man. Yes, too, the dogs would come and lick his ulcers.
22 Now in course of time the beggar died and he was carried off by the angels to the bosom [position] of Abraham. Also, the rich man died and was buried.
23 And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, he existing in torments, and he saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in the bosom [position] with him.
24 So he called and said, 'Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in anguish in this blazing fire.'
25 But Abraham said, 'Child, remember that you received in full your good things in your lifetime, but Lazarus correspondingly the injurious things. Now, however, he is having comfort here but you are in anguish.
26 And besides all these things, a great chasm has been fixed between us and you people, so that those wanting to go over from here to you people cannot, neither may people cross over from there to us.'
27 Then he said, 'In that event I ask you, father, to send him to the house of my father,
28 for I have 5 brothers, in order that he may give them a thorough witness, that they also should not get into this place of torment.'
29 But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to these.'
30 Then he said, 'No, indeed, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them they will repent.'
31 But he said to him, 'If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead (Luke 16).
So the body is destroyed in Gehenna but not the head which can talk, hear, see and has a tongue! And the soul is destroyed as we read in Matthew 10. Also no head is self sustaining, it must remain plugged into something. But that something is not a soul and is not its own body. A living soul is a self sustaining body with a spirit in it. And dead soul is a dead body with no spirit in it. Gehenna is like Legion, possesed by 6,000 demons and the 3 in a pig sequel. The account prophetically tells us what demons want in Gehenna. Gehenna is worse than having 6,000 demons in a man but is better than having 3 demons in a pig. So one exists in a multi-spirited beast as it were. A time-shared body for a multiplicity of spirits.

If a soul in the Kingdom is a driver in a car then the spirits in Gehenna are passengers or drivers in a fleet of buses. Surely every Londoner suspected that Hell would have bendy buses in it!

We learn from the great chasm in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that you cannot visit people in Gehenna, but fathers can communicate with their immediate children via a duplex video link. And children in Gehenna can communicate with fathers in the Kingdom. But the rich man was unable to communicate directly with Lazarus or with his own brothers. He had to go through Abraham. So those in Gehenna can only speak to their nearest father in the kingdom of God. This father then becomes their priest, their prison visitor.

### The Second Death

1 And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven with the key of the abyss and a great chain in his hand [new subaccount].
2 And he seized the dragon [accusative], who is the serpent, the ancient [nominatives] a Devil [slanderer] and the Satan [the opposer] [All these designations refer to Satan's entire heavenly organisation, not merely to Satan himself who is the head of the serpent and the head of the dragon], and bound him for 1,000 years [from around 650 AD to 1650 AD, certainly between 444Tishri when FDS2 lost its water baptism and 1884Tishri when FDS3 started its water baptism and probably after the Koran was inspired, since Satan is a mimic God. His trade mark is large empires. Satan and the demons went inside after the Roman empire fell and came out before the British empire rose.]
3 And he hurled him into the abyss and shut [it] and sealed [it] over him, that he might not mislead the nations anymore until the 1,000 years were ended. After these things he must be let loose for a little while [mikron cronon] [and the put back in the abyss of Gehenna in 2008].

4 And I saw thrones, and there were those who sat down on them, and power of judging was given them [1NC and 2NC kings]. Yes, I saw the souls of those beheaded due to the witness of/to Jesus and due to the word of God, and those who had worshiped neither the wild-beast nor its image and who had not received the mark upon their forehead and upon their hand. And they came to life and reigned with the Christ for 1,000 years [from 2008Nisan to 3008Nisan].
5 The rest of the dead [non sanctified, judicially second dead] did not come to life [get born again] until the 1,000 years [of the Kingdom of God] were ended [be they unsanctified citizens of the kingdom or inmates of Gehenna]. This [the coming to life of the kings of verse 4] [is] the resurrection, the first.
6 Happy and holy is anyone having part in the resurrection, the first, over these the second death has no authority but they will be priests of God and of the Christ, and will reign with him for the 1,000 years [they are sealed in holy spirit, they cannot ever be put into Gehenna, the second death, a soul-less existence as a spirit].
7 Now as soon as the 1,000 years [of the sentence on Satan's organisation] have been ended Satan will be let loose out of his prison [in around 1650 AD we think],
8 and he will go out to mislead the nations, the [ones] in the 4 corners of the earth, the [antitypical] Gog [he is] and [the antitypical] Magog [is his land/administration] [Gog the chieftain of the land of Magog launched a disastrous attack on Israel and got pestilence, blood, flooding downpour, hailstones, fire and sulphur from Jehovah who sanctified himself at Gog's expense in Ezekiel 38,39 - In the final part of the years you will come to the land - In the final part of the days it will occur and I shall certainly bring you against my land - the prophets of Israel who were prophesying in those days, years as to bringing you in upon them], to gather them together for the war [there is no war in the Kingdom of God - they will learn war no more - Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3. So this war is Armageddon]. The number of these is as the sand of the sea.
9 And they advanced over the breadth of the earth and encircled the camp of the holy ones and the city, the [one] having been loved. But fire came down out of heaven and devoured them [this being the greater flood of lava, the flood of fire, the greater destruction of Sodom, the end of this world by volcanic eruption, an extinction level event - see U154].
10 And the Devil, the [one] deceiving them [Satan's heavenly slandering organisation, but not its individual members] was hurled into the lake of the fire and sulphur [everlasting destruction], where both the wild-beast [the UN as an organisation, but not its members] and the false prophet [already were] [the US/UK world power, but not their citizens]. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever [no more false prophets, wild beasts or heavenly slanderers]

11 And I saw a great white throne and the one seated on it. From before him the earth and the heaven fled away, and no place was found for them.
12 And I saw the dead [judicially second dead, those not sanctified], the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. But another scroll was opened; it is the scroll of life. And the dead were judged out of those things written in the scrolls [one scroll would be the heavenly records of sins against ones conscience, the other would be the heavenly record of sins against the law of any true church] according to their deeds.
13 And the sea [everyone not in the earth, God's true church, the LWs] gave up those dead in it [to be sorted into faithful and faithless by Jesus through his wife after 2008Iyyar29], and death and Hades gave up those dead in them [The first death gets bypassed and everyone who dies during Armageddon goes straight into Gehenna to watch the rest of the battle from there, without falling asleep in Hades. Hades then gives up its death by resurrection throughout the kingdom, in reverse order of dying], and they were judged individually according to their deeds.
14 And death and Hades were hurled into the lake of fire [Physical dying 'death' and being physically dead, in the first death in Hades are temporarily abolished - for at least 1,000 years]. This is the death, the second, the lake of fire [everyone in Hades ends up either in the Kingdom of God or in Gehenna after all the resurrections out of Hades have finished].
15 Furthermore, whoever was not found written in the book of life was hurled into the lake of fire [you definitely want to be in this book, the book of the FRC] (Revelation 20).

Death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire, not the lake of fire and sulphur, just the lake of fire. Now the symbolic difference between the lake of fire and the lake of fire and sulphur, is that the latter lake has sulphur which keeps the fire going. So the former lake, the lake of fire, does not keep going. So it lasts for a fixed period of time. But the lake of fire and sulphur lasts for a longer period of time or possibly forever.

We are told that the lake of fire is the second death. So the lake of fire and sulphur is the second death continuing indefinitely, but being thrown into the lake of fire is a fixed prison term in the second death. Now all of those who break their spirit baptism are judged adversely, and experience the second death, which is Gehenna. But since this death is represented not by the lake of fire and sulphur, but rather by the lake of fire alone, they only experience this for a fixed period of time. Gehenna is in fact a sin bin which lasts indefinitely, but the max length of any sentence is the 1,000 years of the Kingdom of God.

4 For it is impossible as regards those who have once for all been enlightened, and who have tasted the heavenly free gift, and who have become partakers of holy spirit,
5 and who have tasted the fine word of God and powers of the coming system of things,
6 but who have fallen away, to revive them again to repentance, because they impale the Son of God afresh for themselves and expose him to public shame (Hebrews 6).

28 Truly I say to you that all things will be forgiven the sons of men, no matter what sins and blasphemies they blasphemously commit.
29 However, whoever blasphemes against the holy spirit has no forgiveness for time indefinite/forever, but is guilty of indefinitely/ever lasting sin.
30 This, because they were saying: He has an unclean spirit. (Mark 3).

32 For example, whoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it will be forgiven him; but whoever speaks against the holy spirit, it will not be forgiven him, no, not in this system of things nor in that to come (Matthew 12:32).

These three scriptures are all referring to the same thing, which is actually a breaking of one's spirit baptism. This makes one an 'unclean spirit' (Mark 3). The Greek word aiwnion can mean 'indefinitely lasting' or 'everlasting' dependent on the context. Breaking a spirit baptism puts you straight into Gehenna. There is no forgiveness says Jesus in Matthew, not in this system of things, nor in the one to come (the Kingdom of God). Now let us think about that carefully worded holy statement. We already know that there was forgiveness for the sin against the holy spirit for Adam in the system before this system, which was the edenic system. So the omission of this edenic system from Jesus' words was deliberate. But Jesus also omits the system after the Kingdom of God. So we can deduce from that omission that in the system after the Kingdom of God (which is the system after the system to come), one can be forgiven. So if you break your spirit baptism, you are in Gehenna, in the lake of fire, you experience the second death, for the duration of the Kingdom of God only.

When Paul said, Death where is your victory, death where is your sting, he did not exclude the second death from his utterance. So speaking clearly we can now say on behalf of all those who do not make it to the Kingdom of God, 50% of us: Second death, where is your victory? And on behalf of the 50% of us that do make it into the Kingdom of God, we say: Second death, where is your sting?

55 Death, where is your victory? Death, where is your sting? (1 Corinthians 15).

For our God has stated through his great prophet Isaiah that:

10 Everything that is my delight I shall do (Isaiah 46).

And his apostle Paul of the second true Christian church said..

21 For since death is through a man, resurrection of the dead is also through a man.
22 For just as in Adam all are dying, so also in the Christ all will be made alive (1 Corinthians 15).

All will conquer death through the Christ, not some but all of Adam's sons. All those who die in Adam will get life in Jesus. Gehenna is the second death. No son of Adam will languish there indefinitely. Jesus fixes all of the problems for all of Adam's kids, even the ones who get the resurrection of the unrighteous, a resurrection into Gehenna...

15 and I have hope toward God, which hope these [men] themselves also entertain, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous (Acts 24).

for the book of life is the book of those whom God declares righteous (not that they actually are in their works, but they are in their disposition). For Paul says, referring to this declaration...

17 just as it is written: I have appointed you a father of many nations. This was in the sight of the One in whom he had faith, even of God, who makes the dead alive and calls the things that are not as though they were (Romans 4).

But those who do not make it to the book of life, those who are not declared righteous, those who get the resurrection of the unrighteous end up in Hell, which is Gehenna. So Gehenna is the second death. So the first death is a non conscious existence in a sleeping angel and the second death is a conscious existence in a prison with no body.

### Angels and Gehenna

Angels cannot abuse the life of angels, since their bodies are not mortal. Neither can they abuse the procreation, life giving process of angels since angels do not reproduce sexually. So the only way for an angel to be sentenced to death is if he or she interacts with humans and abuses human life. Satan and the demons who came down before the flood have both done this. They will therefore go into Gehenna. The only way out of Gehenna is through the sacrifice of Michael who ransomed Adam angelically.

But any son of Adam by covenant must be what Adam was, since Adam is his covenant father and like begets like. So all hs covenanted sons are humans with associated angels. Furthermore the route into the ARC is through either FRC sand the CRC. So one must be a human to enter into the ARC. So the demons and Satan will be resurrected from Gehenna as humans. They are actually ransomed out of that place by Gabriel and the CRC as a result of repentance if they come out during the thousand years and perhaps after1,000 years they just get resurrected anyway but under the CRC??

Satan will end up as a son of the parents whom he abused. And the angels who lusted after flesh will become the very flesh they lusted after. Tartarus is the angelic holding pen for Gehenna. Gehenna is the reform prison for both errant humans and errant angels who have abused life. But angels can only abuse life by interacting with humans. They can only abuse human life as it is not possible to abuse an angelic soul. So we all end up in the same place having all committed the same type of offence.

6 And the angels that did not keep their original position but forsook their own proper dwelling place he has reserved with indefinitely lasting bonds under dense darkness for the judgment of the great day [the 1,000 year long great day] (Jude).

Gehenna is not inaugurated until the Kingdom of God starts. The demons have been in Tartarus since the flood and will be transferred to Gehenna during the kingdom.

4 Certainly if God did not hold back from punishing the angels that sinned, but, by throwing them into Tartarus, delivered them to pits of darkness to be reserved for judgment (2 Peter 2).

18 Why, even Christ died once for all time concerning sins, a righteous [person] for unrighteous ones, that he might lead you to God, he being put to death in the flesh, but being made alive in the spirit.
19 In this [state] [dead in the flesh but alive in the spirit] also he went his way and preached to the spirits in prison (1 Peter 3).
44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised up a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual one [the body of an angel or the body of a God] (1 Corinthians 15).

So the angels in Tartarus are in their angelic bodies but in darkness, cut off from the light and in prison. The lose their angelic souls in Gehenna, where they share a soul with various other soul-mates. Since 'pits' is plural it looks like each angel has his own pit. Furthermore the practice of the ancient humans was to put people individually into pits as prisons...

20 Should bad be repaid for good? For they have excavated a pit for my soul. Remember my standing before you to speak good even concerning them, to turn back your rage from them.
21 Therefore give their sons over to the famine, and deliver them over to the power of the sword; and may their wives become women bereaved of children, and widows. And may their own men become those killed with deadly plague, their young men those struck down with the sword in the battle.
22 Let a cry be heard out of their houses, when you bring upon them suddenly a marauder band. For they have excavated a pit to capture me, and traps they have hid for my feet (Jeremiah 18).

'Pit' can also mean the first death...

29 There is where Edom, her kings and all her chieftains are, who, in their mightiness, were put with those slain by the sword;
they themselves will lie down even with the uncircumcised ones and with those going down into [the] pit (Ezekiel 32).

So Tartarus would appear to be a form of solitary confinement (social death) for demons wherein they are cut off in a manner not dissimilar from the first death. Essentially Tartarus is a living angelic first death! But humans from the first death and angels from Tartarus both end up in the second death. Tartarus is angelic sheol or hades.

________________________________________

Note1: In Matthew 25 in some translations (the NWT is quoted below) we read:

46 And these will depart into everlasting cutting-off, but the righteous ones into everlasting life (Matthew 25).

But again the Greek Word aiwnion can mean indefinitely lasting or everlasting dependent on the context (William Mounce - Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New testament). So we would translate this verse as:

46 And these will depart into indefinitely lasting cutting-off, but the righteous ones into indefinitely lasting life (Matthew 25).

The righteous ones are righteous in the flesh, since they were not in the true religion - see I29. So they do not have everlasting life, they have indefinitely lasting life. Only those righteous in the spirit have everlasting life. So we must translate aiwnion as meaning indefinitely lasting in the case of those getting life and therefore it must also mean indefinitely lasting in the case of those getting cutting off.

Note2:

There has been a long standing debate amongst criminologists between the proponents of retributive justice and the proponents of rehabilitative justice. The former group believe in punishment as a deterrent and for the sake of justice or vengeance. The latter believe in punishment for the sake of teaching. The above understanding shows us that God manages to combine both views, for he believes in punishment for all three reasons (the former view has two reasons). But he does not believe in punishment merely for vengeance or merely as a deterrent, there is always a lesson to be learned. God does not support punishment without teaching. He would never support a life sentence which leaves the criminal with no hope. Even Satan has no such sentence. But neither would he support 18 months in prison for rape. The penalty for murder or rape in the days from Adam to Moses was 7 years outside the camp, i.e. in prison if the camp is the whole country, as it is today. Not a day less and not a day more. The purpose of discipline is to teach. The reader may be asking why did God give a 7 year penalty for murder to the sons of Adam (Genesis 4:15), but a death sentence to the sons of Moses (Exodus 21:12). Since God's justice is supposed to be constant how can he be setting these two different punishments for the same crime? The answer would appear to be that death is a temporary imprisonment in any event. In fact one could use this argument to prove that there must be a resurrection from death, just as there is a release from prison.

But as regards those who abuse and who steal human life and those who persistently trash human love, everlasting death is too good for them, let them go to hell for 1,000 years! For there, by losing both of them, they will indeed learn the exceeding value of life and of love. In the present world, some children, such as the orphans of Beslan or of AIDS have never seen much love. One of the kids of Beslan said: There is no God. This is why God cannot permit this system to last much longer. Every child deserves a loving template and God will ensure that one way or another, in one system or the other, they get one.

Note3:

Suicide bombers and politicians who damage or destroy innocent people's bodies in order to make political statements, or to maintain political power will not get 70,000 virgins when they die as some believe. They will not even get a physical body. Instead they will have 1,000 years of non corporeal existence in a sin bin from which they cannot possibly escape, in order to contemplate their misguided wickedness as they watch a lot more than 70,000 virgins in the kingdom of God loving and being loved by people who are not murderers. However God never leaves anyone without hope. There will be an early parole system for those who truly repent and learn the vital lessons that God is teaching us during the 1,000 year kingdom of God.

Note4:

It is possible to get early parole from Gehenna, and be released from Hell into the Kingdom of God during the 1,000 years. Genesis 5 has the timetable for this early parole. But if you have been born again and lose faith and end up in Gehenna, then you are ineligible for any early parole...

24 True, the Son of man is going away, just as it is written concerning him, but woe to that man through whom the Son of man is betrayed! It would have been finer for him if that man had not been born [again] (Matthew 26).

32 For example, whoever speaks a word against the Son of man, it will be forgiven him. But whoever speaks against the holy spirit, it will not be forgiven him, no, not in this system of things nor in that to come (Matthew 12).

A man who sins against the holy spirit, i.e. breaks his spirit baptism, will not be forgiven either in this system or the next, so you cannot get early parole from Gehenna. You can only be forgiven after the Kingdom of God. When God blesses you, if you show no gratitude, you end up worse than if he hadn't blessed you. This was the case with Judas. Judas guaranteed himself a 1,000 year prison sentence when he broke his baptism. But if he had never showed any faith at all, he would in fact have been better off, having a shot at getting out of Hell during the 1,000 years. The Jews under law were physically blessed from 1513 to 604 BC, then having shown no gratitude (as a group) they were physically cursed for 2520 years from 604 BC to 1917 AD - see U121. They are no longer under that curse however.