THE GREAT WHITE THRONE JUDGMENT
This would seem to be further confirmed by the following Scriptures from the Old Testament. God, apparently speaking to Jesus, says, “Because of the blood of your covenant, I will set your prisoners free from the waterless Pit.”1 “He will redeem his soul from going down to the Pit, and his life shall see the light. Behold, God works all these things … to bring back his soul from the Pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of life.”2 After all, what’s the use of punishing people if it’s totally impossible to ever teach them anything and they’ll never change, never rehabilitate, never learn? It looks like Hell would be a waste of time if it’s used for nothing but to give people eternal suffering. But what about some of the verses like Revelation 14:10–11 that say that the very wicked, people who worshiped the Antichrist, will be “tormented with fire and brimstone, … and the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night”? This sounds like an eternal, perpetual, neverending punishment. But is it? Actually, the word translated “forever” in those Scriptures is the Greek word aeon, meaning “for an age”—which no doubt is for a long time, but does not necessarily mean “eternal.” “Forever and ever” in the Greek in which these Scriptures were originally written 1
Zechariah 9:11 Job 33:28–30
2
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