Sir,

I’ve just come across this idea when searching for alternative interpretation of the afterlife for those who did not accept God because, to me, it just didn’t seem just that God should punish those who choose not to serve him since they had no choice in their existence. It is not like we signed a contract before our creation that required us to use our life for him or suffer, and now we are going against that contract. That doesn’t seem right to me, if you understand what I’m saying. So I’m trying to understand what it means.

What does it mean if the elect are the Lake of Fire? How does that work? Surely this isn’t literal, so what is it symbolizing? The Bible describes wailing and gnashing of teeth in several places. What is the purpose of this lake of fire (elect) that it causes such pain?

A____

Hi A____,

Thank you for your question. You are certainly on the right track when you are given to notice that we were not asked if we wanted to be created in these “marred” vessels of clay.

Jer 18:4 And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

The apostle Paul explains what it means to be “marred in the hand of the Potter” in these verses:

Rom 7:17 Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.
Rom 7:19 For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.
Rom 7:20 Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.
Rom 7:21 I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me.
Rom 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:
Rom 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Rom 7:24 O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
Rom 7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.

How did this “law of sin” get “in my members”? Here is who is responsible for that “marred condition:

Jas 4:12 There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

So God has created us in a marred condition and of a marred composition. We are born with a carnal mind which cannot be subject to Him or His laws:

Rom 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
Rom 8:8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.

What has God done? Has He made us in this marred condition for the purpose of watching us writhe for all eternity in literal flames of literal fire because we “are not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be”?

No, that is not what the scriptures teach. The words translated as forever, or eternity, or forever and ever, are always without exception either the Greek word aion or its adjective form aionios or the word ‘ad‘ which has the same ‘a’ root. They are all dealing with a period of time having a definite beginning and a definite end, and those Greek words have nothing to do with eternity, which has no beginning and no end.

We are indeed promised “immortality” which means we will not ever be subject to death, but the scriptures nowhere teach anything about endless torment, as we have all heard in the churches of ‘Babylon’, a Biblical word for the church system which hates the true doctrines of scripture.

1Co 15:53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
1Co 15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

This “immortality” is, via “fiery trials”, promised to all who are in Adam and not just to some:

1Co 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Pe 4:13 But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.

So there is the Biblical definition of fiery trials. It is Christ’s sufferings which is just another way of saying His Words, because Christ suffered because of His words and His doctrines, as God’s true prophets always have:

Jer 5:14 Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

You asked me:

What does it mean if the elect are the Lake of Fire? How does that work? Surely this isn’t literal, so what is it symbolizing? The Bible describes wailing and gnashing of teeth in several places. What is the purpose of this lake of fire (elect) that it causes such pain?

Here is what the Word of God is, and what it does when it is in the mouth of God’s elect:

1Co 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
1Co 3:14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

“… Saved, yet so as by fire”. There it is! Oh yes, there is “wailing and gnashing of teeth”, but through that painful experience of being judged by the words of God, we will in the end, be “saved, yet so as by fire”.

Now who is it with those fiery words in their mouths? Who is it who is comfortable in those spiritual ‘flames’ which “try every man’s works [and] yet so as by fire… saves… every man”?

Here are the only people who are not hurt of the flames that come out of their own mouths:

Isa 33:14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
Isa 33:15 He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;

The Hebrew word translated ‘everlasting’ here is ‘olawn‘, and it is then translated as ‘aion‘ when the Old Testament is quoted in the New Testament:

Psa 105:10 And confirmed the same unto Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting [Hebrew: olawm] covenant:

Heb 13:20 Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting [Greek: aionios] covenant,

We are plainly told that the Potter, God Himself, created all men in a marred, carnal-minded condition, by which we are by nature banished from our own Creator.

King David put this condition in which we find ourselves in these words:

Psa 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Then we are also plainly told that God has devised a means by which His banished be not expelled from Him:

2Sa 14:14 For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again; neither doth God respect any person: yet doth he devise means, that his banished be not expelled from him.

We are also plainly told that even though our works are “wood, hay and stubble,” we will be “saved, yet so as by fire”.

To answer your questions, God’s words are the fire of the lake of fire, which is those in whose mouths those fiery words are. The story of Joseph’s brothers being caused by God to bow before him and being judged by him is the Old Testament type and shadow of how that works. They are the type of those who sold Christ for thirty pieces of silver (Joseph was sold by his brothers for twenty pieces of silver), and who will come up in the second resurrection to be judged of God by His words, which are the “fire” of the “the lake of fire” and of “Gehenna fire”.

It is the fact that we are all “saved, yet so as by fire”, that makes this “lake of fire” also a “white throne… judgment”.

Here is what judges those who are in that “blessed and holy… first resurrection”, as well as those who are judged at the “white throne… judgment”:

Joh 12:48 He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
Joh 12:49 For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.

Joseph’s brothers were in “outer darkness… [experiencing] weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth”. It was through Joseph’s words that they were made aware that nothing they did was of themselves, but it was all a work of God:

Gen 45:4 And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt.
Gen 45:5 Now therefore be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me hither: for God did send me before you to preserve life.
Gen 45:6 For these two years hath the famine been in the land: and yet there are five years, in the which there shall neither be earing nor harvest.
Gen 45:7 And God sent me before you to preserve you a posterity in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
Gen 45:8 So now it was not you that sent me hither, but God: and he hath made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

So it is with all men. Yes, we do sell our Lord and crucify Him, and yet “It is not I that do it… but God” (Rom 7:17 and 20).

God has devised fiery trials to save those who are “first… the house of God” (1Pe 4: 12 and 17) who will be in the first resurrection and will rule with Him over the nations of this world for a thousand years, and then He will use those few whom He calls a “lake of fire” as the means to deliver His banished at an event which He calls the “great white throne… judgment”.

This ‘judgment’ will be the destruction of death, and this is what is accomplished at any judgment of God:

Isa 26:9 With my soul have I desired thee in the night; yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early: for when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

Here is a link which will help you to better understand the words ‘olawm‘ and ‘aion‘.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike