Sinners are already condemned. We are all already sentenced to the death penalty because of sin. What do you think it means to be condemned? Jesus Christ Himself was condemned.

Luke 24:20 And how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be CONDEMNED to death, and have crucified him.

Other translations use the word “sentenced” instead of condemned but they both have the same meaning. It is an act of judgment against someone and the biblical context of condemnation consistently points to the death sentence. Since we are talking about condemnation, how can you quote John 3:18 and not link it to the context of the previous verse?

John 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.

God did NOT send Christ to condemn the world, He sent Him to save the world. I italicized the word “might” because those slithery little KJV bible translators were slick in adding their little auxiliary verbs that are not in the original Greek. If you go to Blue Letter Bible and look at the Greek interlinear of John 3:17, you will see that they translated the verb “save” which in the Greek is “sōzō” as the whole phrase, “might be saved”. What kind of scholarship is that? They added the word “might” because it implies qualification and in Christianity one must choose Christ even though in John 6:44, Jesus says that NO ONE can come to Him unless the Father who sent Him draws them. Will God draw everyone to Christ? How does God accomplish that?

John 12:32 And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself.

This is Christ speaking about the manner in which He was going to die and we know Christ died for the sins of the world. There is NO might or maybe about it. God did NOT send Christ to condemn the world but that the world through Him WILL BE saved. So how does this apply to John 3:18? He who doesn’t believe is already condemned… What does that mean? This all has to do with the entire passage going back to John 3:16. One of the biggest Christian misconceptions is that believers are given “eternal life” but that is not what the promise is. The promise is aionios life. The Greek word “aionios” means age-abiding not eternal. Most popular bible translations have carried over the improper Latin translation of the Greek word aionios which was the Latin word eternus. This is not true to the original meaning in the Greek. Aionios is an adjective and adjectives describe nouns. The root noun for which aionios is derived is aion and aion means an AGE. An adjective cannot take on a different meaning from the root noun it is derived from so just as yearly pertains to years, aionios pertains to aions. So aionios has to do with ages and that is how we come to the proper meaning of the Greek word “aionios” which is age-abiding.

John 3:16 For God, so loved, the world, that, his Only Begotten Son, he gave,––that, whosoever believeth on him, might not perish, but have life AGE–ABIDING. (Rotherham’s Emphasized Bible)

Those who do not believe on the Son will only perish for the age to come. These are they that rise in the second resurrection to judgment. Believers rise in the first resurrection to life to experience another age of life, a spiritual life in immortal glorified bodies with Christ in the Kingdom that the rest of the world doesn’t get to experience because they are still perished under the previous administration of condemnation for which Christ has yet to put under His feet. The law spoken of in Romans 2:14-16 has to do with God judging the hearts of men through Jesus Christ in the Day of Judgment. This has nothing to do with eternal condemnation as you seem to be suggesting. The judgment of God is one of the most misunderstood theologies in all of Christianity. Yes there will be a resurrection to judgment but God judges the world in righteousness.

Isaiah 26:9 My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, THE PEOPLE OF THE WORLD LEARN RIGHTEOUSNESS.

The purpose of judgment is correction not eternal damnation. Those who rise in the second resurrection to judgment will face the second death but what point would it be for God to raise the perished from the dead only to send them back to being perished? Those who rise in the resurrection to shame and contempt as we read in Daniel 12:2 is not an everlasting condition even though most bibles erroneously translate the Hebrew word “olam” as everlasting. This is a key error in the understanding of how God accomplishes His plan to save the world. Once the multitudes that suffer the age-during judgment of shame and contempt, we read in the very next verse that MANY ARE TURNED TO RIGHTESOUSNESS. Who are the many that are turned to righteousness? Those who rise in the first resurrection? Those who are wise? We know that the first class of resurrection participants are called the FEW – that is the few that find the road that leads to life (in the coming age) so there is another class of people (the many that take the broad road that leads to destruction) that will be turned to righteousness when God’s judgments are in the earth. This is when the people of the world (that’s many) will learn righteousness.

God did not lie when He said that He did NOT send His Son to condemn the world but to save it. Do you believe that? Do you believe that the Son was sent to save the world? Isn’t belief in Christ what you believe leads to salvation yet you deny the very essence of who Christ is and reject His ability to accomplish what His Father sent Him to do? How then can you go on to suggest that you are a believer in Christ? You don’t understand what the second death is. You are using carnal logic to interpret that which is spiritual. Does Christ literally have a double-edged sword coming out of His mouth? The lake of fire/second death is a literary device that has a much deeper higher spiritual meaning just as the double-edged sword coming out of the mouth of Christ has a deeper higher spiritual meaning.

What do we know about the lake of fire second death?

From Revelation 2:11, we read that those who overcome shall not be HURT of the second death… so those who suffer the second death will be hurt. Then we read in 1 Corinthians 3:15 that a man shall SUFFER LOSS if his work is burned but he himself shall be saved so as though fire. The literary device that Paul uses in this passage of scripture is a person’s work and how one builds on the foundation of Christ with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and stubble. These are metaphors because one does not use these things literally to build on the foundation of Christ. Fire does not destroy gold, silver, and precious stones it refines them so the person’s work that remains shall be rewarded. These are the spiritual character traits and the good deeds we’ve done in our lives. When wood, hay, and stubble are put through the fire they are all destroyed so if a person’s work is destroyed that person will suffer loss. They will be hurt by the fire when the fire burns out the sinfulness and evil deeds of a person but the person will remain and be saved. Paul declares in 1 Corinthians 15:54 that death will be swallowed up in victory. How can this be so if you believe that the multitudes of people that are cast into the lake of fire perish and are finally and wholly dead? Seems to me that death will be victorious over many if I am to believe your analysis and Christ will not have defeated death making Him a cataclysmic failure on God’s part. You say only those who put faith in Christ have eternal life but how does one come to have faith in Christ? Isn’t faith a gift from God? Do you believe that God gives this gift of faith to everyone in this life/age? If that was true then why are there many called but few chosen? God makes vessels of dishonor, hardens hearts, sends strong delusions, and give people over to a reprobate mind. Do you believe any of those people can put faith in Christ if God hasn’t given them the faith to believe? Think about it… What else do we know about the lake of fire second death?

Revelation 20:14 says that death and hades are cast into the lake of fire which is the second death but death and hades (the grave – the unseen) are not tangible objects that can be cast anywhere. This is a literary device. Death and hades will die or be done away with. The second death is the death of death. There will be no more death. Death is swallowed up in victory!

Revelation 21:8 says that the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Do you believe that a cowardly or timid person should be sentenced to eternal death? Do you believe that an unbeliever should be sentenced to an eternal death? What about liars? You think it’s a true balance of justice for a cowardly person to suffer the same punishment as a murderer? Proverbs 11:1 says that a false balance is an abomination to the Lord. Of all the types of people listed in Revelation 21:8, notice that it says that they shall have their PART in the lake of fire which burns with fire and brimstone (which is a purifying agent btw) which is the second death. The word “part” which comes from the Greek word “meros” literally means a share or portion. There is no indication here that any of these people will suffer a literal second death for which there is no life. They will have their share or portion of the lake of fire second death meaning that they will be exposed to the corrective purging of God’s judgment by fire until they have been cleansed of whatever needs to be cleansed. This is why we see a sea of glass mingled with FIRE standing on the sea of glass in Revelation 15:2. The see of glass mingled with fire is the masses of people that go through God’s lake of fire and come out purified. They are standing on those made righteous in the first resurrection because they have no fire in them having avoided the lake of fire second death judgment.

This is my biblical argument that the lake of fire is God’s crucible for the refining and purification of sinful humanity. This is a literary device. Nobody is going to be cast into a literal lake of fire. You seem to understand that even believers go through judgment by fire in this life but the fire isn’t literal it is through trial and tribulation.

Proverbs 17:3 The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, BUT THE LORD TESTS THE HEART.

Malachi 3:2 But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For HE WILL BE LIKE A REFINER’S FIRE or a launderer’s soap.

He will be LIKE a refiner’s fire, He is not the literal refiner’s fire or crucible. God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29) but this too is an analogy. God is like a consuming fire in certain ways. He is not a literal fire. How does God skim off the purge in the life of a believer? Through fiery trials of judgment that test the heart. The lake of fire is future judgment for the non-Elect while the elect go through judgment in this life. Believers must deny themselves, take up their cross, then follow Christ… is that not death to you? A second death so to speak? The death of who or what?

Romans 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

Who is our old man? The old man is Adam the sinful man in all of us. The old sinful man is crucified with Christ. That was the whole purpose of Christ’s work on the cross to undo what Adam did to reverse the death penalty and to destroy the works of the flesh.

Yes, many doctrines of Christianity contradict but that is because Christianity has adopted so many unscriptural dogmas and traditions. Christianity isn’t scripture and it surely doesn’t have a patent on God’s saving work for humanity. No one can pick up a “bible” and know all things for all bibles do not even agree. We have to learn how to rightly divide the word of truth. Now when it comes to salvation, we must first believe and accept that salvation belongs to God for only God can save. You are correct in saying that YHWH has made His plan of salvation quite clear but it is Christianity that has distorted God’s salvation and perverted it with the creeds of men. Who has believed our report says the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 53:1? Do you believe this report? God has a plan and Christianity has their own version of God’s plan. Let me see if I can make this clear as I can…

God desires for all humanity to be saved. It is His desire and we are told this in 1 Timothy 2:3-4 but how many believe that God will not get what He desires? Is He God? Does God have the power to bring about His own desires?

Isaiah 46:9-11 ….I am God, there is no other; I am God, there is none like me. At the beginning I declare the outcome; from of old, things not yet done. I say that my plan shall stand, I ACCOMPLISH MY EVERY DESIRE.

How can we deny such powerful passages of scripture? This is the report! If we claim to believe in God then it is paramount that we trust and believe the things that He has reported through His prophets. That’s what makes one a believer so to deny this would make one an unbeliever and we already know that unbelievers will have their PART in the lake of fire the burns with fire and brimstone which is the second death. Belief in religious tradition has never made anyone a believer and that’s why many will say, Lord Lord, and Christ will say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you” but even in this scenario, it is not an eternal declaration. Christ is not done here because in the end, He will draw all humanity to Himself and He will cause every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is to the glory of the Father. When Christ has put down all rule, authority, and power which will culminate in Him putting all enemies under His feet, He will then deliver the Kingdom to the Father and God will be all in all (1 Corinthians 15-22-28)!

“Justification of one’s unbiblical beliefs abounds within Christianity and I say, let them have it. We are not saved by knowing doctrine and if they don’t want to challenge themselves in understanding difficult passages, then so be it”.

Maybe the “THEM” in your own words includes you and you should challenge yourself to understand difficult passages. If not, like you said… so be it!

Sulaiman