Broad meadows

In Hosea 4:6 the LORD says this: “my people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
“Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also reject you as my priests;
because you have ignored the law of your God,
I also will ignore your children.” In an effort to keep the message simple, the church in its teachings sometimes conflate things that are not the same. In the above question, the Bible is clear that they are not the same thing, but the church essentially teaches that they are the same . But what does the Bible say?

Let’s start with the abyss. The term “Abyss “ is first mentioned in Luke 8 when Jesus meets the man possessed by a legion of demons. They beg Jesus not to order them into the Abyss. So who in habits the abyss? Demons. In 2 Peter, the word for hell there is “Tartarus” which is not the same Greek word for hell, which is hades. Tartarus translates as “gloomy dungeon “ according to Strongs concordance. But Peter is clearly referring to the Abyss in that passage. The inhabitants and purpose of the Abyss are made clear in the book of Revelation as a holding place for demons.

In the last writing and in Revelation 20 we see death and hell thrown into the lake of fire, so hell and the lake of fire are clearly not the same thing. So what would constitute the “outer darkness”? My take on this is that the outer darkness where Jesus says there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth “ would appear to be the final phase of eternal punishment. Hell has been emptied and destroyed. The dead in them have been judged. A list of what qualifies one for the lake of fire is given. But that same list is now outside of the city, the New Jerusalem on the new earth. They are now pictured outside of the lake of fire. So why is this the outer darkness? In the parable of the talents, Jesus commends his servants as faithful with few things and puts them in charges of many things. The servant who wasn’t was sent to the outer darkness because they were not faithful in handling a few things. As Jesus says in Luke 16:11, “So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches?” People now understand what true riches are and can’t have it, forever. That close to having it all, but getting none of it. That would be torture for many.

So there is such a thing as eternal punishment, but it changes over time and under circumstances that the church won’t acknowledge.Much of what can be known about the kingdom of heaven is found in the Old Testament , but the church has limited its vision of what can be discerned there by treating it only as history and limiting its prophetic abilities to Jesus only when clearly there are other prophesies that point to other aspects of God’s plan. And yes, there is more than what’s being told. If held only to the church’s vision of God’s plan, He loses almost all of humanity. I think the lessons from the parables in Luke 15 would indicate otherwise.