if not then there would truly be one church in the world.
It means what is says, there is not one church, there are many many churches, catholic, orthodox, anglican, baptist, methodist, pentecostal etc etc and they all have different beliefs and dogmas, the church is not united. Jesus gave us the Great Commission - we have not delivered, just as Israel did not deliver but allowed man's rules to take precedence. Look at the arguments Jesus had with them trying to get man's rules out and restore God's. See Mark 7:6-13
There are many Bibles and they conflict, resulting from different underlying manuscripts and different translators. There is no agreement in the church, it is not one faith, one God or there would not be a different church on every street corner.
So you are clear because I think you have picked up some dogma - hell is today empty and no one is being punished there. The problem comes from translators who have translated both Hades and Ghenna/Lake of Fire as Hell when only Ghenna/Lake of Fire is hell - look carefully at the green of Jesus words. Lazarus & Rich man shows up as hell when in fact Jesus said Hades.
So sorry but Hell is a place or God has lied in Revelation - which do you want? It is the place God has prepared for the devil and all his angels and for those not written in the Lambs Book of Life.
We are eternal beings. Hell is a real place set aside for those that refuse to walk in the truth.
The truth is the truth. If someone refuses to accept the truth it does not change the truth. Hell (or whatever you want to call it) a simply a place where truth is not.
It is a place set aside for those who refuse to live in truth.
So yes, Hell is a place God has prepared for those who will not accept the truth. Not for punishment. It is simply a place set aside. Those dwelling there punish themselves by refusing to walk in truth. They will never be complete.
As far as the churches are concerned. We are not called to create churches. Where two or three are gathered in his name He is there. Church is just mans attempt to put God in
a box.
There are not many bibles. There are many translations.
The whole law is summed up in this. Love the Lord your God and Love your neighbor. It does not matter how much we know or don't know. Without Love we have nothing.
Sorry but man is not naturally an eternal being. Genesis 3:22 (NKJV) Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”
The Tree of Life was in the midst of the garden - Genesis 2:9 - In Chapter 3 God banished A&E because by human nature in an effort to please God they would have rushed and eaten of the ToL, and as God says they would then have lived forever in their fallen state! The importance of this in a fallen state with eternal life one cannot be redeemed!
Thus Hell is a place prepared for the devil and all his angels Matthew 25:41 where the eternal fire will punish them forever.
Paul tells us 1 Corinthians 15:25-26 Christ must rein until the last enemy - Death - is eternally death with. Revelation 20:14 tells us Death and Hades are the last of the personified angels cast into the Lake of Fire/Hell/Ghenna.
Now the people not found in the Lambs Book of Life cast into the Lake of Fire do they burn forever, Matthew 25:46 however we must view all scripture not just the parts which fit our thesis - so this is balanced by Matthew 10:28 - fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Both are Jesus' words so they do not lie. My reading thus is in Chapter 25 they go to the place of eternal fire and judgement which has been prepared for the devil and all his angels, but there per Chapter 10 God destroys their souls as well as their bodies.
Now we receive eternal life by trusting Jesus John 3:16 and the Holy Spirit Paul says is the seal of the promise of that Ephesians 1:13-14. But we can still loose it - Hebrews 6:4-6 and it can never be renewed! I do not believe this is an easy thing to do, God will find ways to protect us - He searches the heart - we can daily go and ask forgiveness and it will be granted - BUT if having been redeemed one chooses to walk away - plenty of anti-God videos on youtube made by people who say they once chose Jesus - if we choose to walk away God will honour that determination of self-will, as you mentioned before.
Translations - yes many translations but these are translated from different manuscripts - and each translator does so from their own doctrinal position. There are two principal underlying manuscripts Textus Receptus and Nestle-Arland and there are many others. TR was formed from resolving differences of several thousand greek manuscripts whilst NA is formed from just three.
The TR set gives rise to the King James group of translations, the NA to the NIV group. Your can search the internet for a lot more detail. There are some minor and some major differences between the TR and NA manuscripts. Sadly translators have made things much worse.
However having said that the Bible, irrespective of manuscript/translation with its 66 books has great redundancy, in that God's plan for the salvation of man, to redeem man from his fallen state and to live with man for all eternity is not lost in the totality of the manuscripts.
You are right we are not called to create churches - but that is precisely what pauline interpretation has done, and worse they are often controlling to the point of culthood, they emphasis scripture A over scripture B. Revelation 17 'mother of harlots' - plural all the churches - we see in verse 9 that some of these leaders were never in the Lambs Book of Life! ! John 2:18-23 warns that anti-christs had already gone out corrupting the believers/churches.
Personally I prioritise Matthew, Mark, John and Revelation over all the rest of NT books, because the three gospels come from first hand (accepting Mark is Peter) experience and Revelation was given expressly by God - Revelation 1:1-3. All the rest I see as commentary and in places do carry true prophesy but this has to be witnessed by other passages and not those also written by the same person.
The Holy Spirit once showed me how every church group has both accurate and inaccurate dogma and teaching. We all have the basics of the dogma we were brought up in and it is vey difficult to get it out of us because we're still broken human beings seeing through a glass darkly. And yes we do at times get clarity through the Holy Spirit but God still honours our free will with what we do with it.
The bottom line is God's plan for salvation of mankind cannot be thwarted by anything which is happening in the world now or at any time in the past, He will prevail and we will live with Him in eternity.
if not then there would truly be one church in the world.
It means what is says, there is not one church, there are many many churches, catholic, orthodox, anglican, baptist, methodist, pentecostal etc etc and they all have different beliefs and dogmas, the church is not united. Jesus gave us the Great Commission - we have not delivered, just as Israel did not deliver but allowed man's rules to take precedence. Look at the arguments Jesus had with them trying to get man's rules out and restore God's. See Mark 7:6-13
There are many Bibles and they conflict, resulting from different underlying manuscripts and different translators. There is no agreement in the church, it is not one faith, one God or there would not be a different church on every street corner.
So you are clear because I think you have picked up some dogma - hell is today empty and no one is being punished there. The problem comes from translators who have translated both Hades and Ghenna/Lake of Fire as Hell when only Ghenna/Lake of Fire is hell - look carefully at the green of Jesus words. Lazarus & Rich man shows up as hell when in fact Jesus said Hades.
So sorry but Hell is a place or God has lied in Revelation - which do you want? It is the place God has prepared for the devil and all his angels and for those not written in the Lambs Book of Life.
We are eternal beings. Hell is a real place set aside for those that refuse to walk in the truth. The truth is the truth. If someone refuses to accept the truth it does not change the truth. Hell (or whatever you want to call it) a simply a place where truth is not. It is a place set aside for those who refuse to live in truth.
So yes, Hell is a place God has prepared for those who will not accept the truth. Not for punishment. It is simply a place set aside. Those dwelling there punish themselves by refusing to walk in truth. They will never be complete.
As far as the churches are concerned. We are not called to create churches. Where two or three are gathered in his name He is there. Church is just mans attempt to put God in a box.
There are not many bibles. There are many translations.
The whole law is summed up in this. Love the Lord your God and Love your neighbor. It does not matter how much we know or don't know. Without Love we have nothing.
Thank you
Sorry but man is not naturally an eternal being. Genesis 3:22 (NKJV) Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”
The Tree of Life was in the midst of the garden - Genesis 2:9 - In Chapter 3 God banished A&E because by human nature in an effort to please God they would have rushed and eaten of the ToL, and as God says they would then have lived forever in their fallen state! The importance of this in a fallen state with eternal life one cannot be redeemed!
Thus Hell is a place prepared for the devil and all his angels Matthew 25:41 where the eternal fire will punish them forever.
Paul tells us 1 Corinthians 15:25-26 Christ must rein until the last enemy - Death - is eternally death with. Revelation 20:14 tells us Death and Hades are the last of the personified angels cast into the Lake of Fire/Hell/Ghenna.
Now the people not found in the Lambs Book of Life cast into the Lake of Fire do they burn forever, Matthew 25:46 however we must view all scripture not just the parts which fit our thesis - so this is balanced by Matthew 10:28 - fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
Both are Jesus' words so they do not lie. My reading thus is in Chapter 25 they go to the place of eternal fire and judgement which has been prepared for the devil and all his angels, but there per Chapter 10 God destroys their souls as well as their bodies.
Now we receive eternal life by trusting Jesus John 3:16 and the Holy Spirit Paul says is the seal of the promise of that Ephesians 1:13-14. But we can still loose it - Hebrews 6:4-6 and it can never be renewed! I do not believe this is an easy thing to do, God will find ways to protect us - He searches the heart - we can daily go and ask forgiveness and it will be granted - BUT if having been redeemed one chooses to walk away - plenty of anti-God videos on youtube made by people who say they once chose Jesus - if we choose to walk away God will honour that determination of self-will, as you mentioned before.
Translations - yes many translations but these are translated from different manuscripts - and each translator does so from their own doctrinal position. There are two principal underlying manuscripts Textus Receptus and Nestle-Arland and there are many others. TR was formed from resolving differences of several thousand greek manuscripts whilst NA is formed from just three.
The TR set gives rise to the King James group of translations, the NA to the NIV group. Your can search the internet for a lot more detail. There are some minor and some major differences between the TR and NA manuscripts. Sadly translators have made things much worse.
However having said that the Bible, irrespective of manuscript/translation with its 66 books has great redundancy, in that God's plan for the salvation of man, to redeem man from his fallen state and to live with man for all eternity is not lost in the totality of the manuscripts.
You are right we are not called to create churches - but that is precisely what pauline interpretation has done, and worse they are often controlling to the point of culthood, they emphasis scripture A over scripture B. Revelation 17 'mother of harlots' - plural all the churches - we see in verse 9 that some of these leaders were never in the Lambs Book of Life! ! John 2:18-23 warns that anti-christs had already gone out corrupting the believers/churches.
Personally I prioritise Matthew, Mark, John and Revelation over all the rest of NT books, because the three gospels come from first hand (accepting Mark is Peter) experience and Revelation was given expressly by God - Revelation 1:1-3. All the rest I see as commentary and in places do carry true prophesy but this has to be witnessed by other passages and not those also written by the same person.
The Holy Spirit once showed me how every church group has both accurate and inaccurate dogma and teaching. We all have the basics of the dogma we were brought up in and it is vey difficult to get it out of us because we're still broken human beings seeing through a glass darkly. And yes we do at times get clarity through the Holy Spirit but God still honours our free will with what we do with it.
The bottom line is God's plan for salvation of mankind cannot be thwarted by anything which is happening in the world now or at any time in the past, He will prevail and we will live with Him in eternity.