{"id":3949,"date":"2012-11-01T03:30:32","date_gmt":"2012-11-01T10:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ministryofgrace.org\/blog\/?p=3949"},"modified":"2012-10-30T20:32:46","modified_gmt":"2012-10-31T03:32:46","slug":"2-thessalonians-19-eternal-torment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/2-thessalonians-19-eternal-torment\/","title":{"rendered":"2 Thessalonians 1:9 &#8211; Eternal Torment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong style=\"color: rgb(0, 0, 128); \">These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3><strong><u>Truth to Learn<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Those who reject Jesus Christ will suffer terribly, for eternity!<\/p>\n<h3><strong><u>Behind the Words<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>The word &ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">punished<\/span>&rdquo; is translated from the words <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>dik\u0113n<\/em> <em>tisousin<\/em><\/span>. The word <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>dik\u0113n<\/em> <\/span>refers to &ldquo;a judgment, a penalty, or a punishment&rdquo; and <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>tisousin<\/em> <\/span>is a form of the verb <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>tin\u014d<\/em><\/span>, which means &ldquo;to pay the value of something.&rdquo; When these two words are used together they mean &ldquo;to pay a penalty.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">Everlasting<\/span>&rdquo; is from the Greek adjective <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>ai\u014dnios<\/em><\/span>, which is derived from the noun <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>ai\u014dn<\/em><\/span>, meaning &ldquo;an age of time.&rdquo; <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>Ai\u014dnios<\/em> <\/span>means &ldquo;constant, perpetual, or eternal.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>Olethros<\/em> <\/span>is the word translated &ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">destruction<\/span>.&rdquo; It is based on the verb <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>ollumi<\/em><\/span>, meaning &ldquo;to destroy&rdquo; or &ldquo;to kill.&rdquo; The fundamental thought behind <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>olethros<\/em> <\/span>is not annihilation (ceasing to exist), but unavoidable and never ending distress and torment.<\/p>\n<p>The word translated &ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">presence<\/span>&rdquo; is <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>pros\u014dpon<\/em><\/span>, which is made up of <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>pros<\/em><\/span>, meaning &ldquo;toward&rdquo; and <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>ops<\/em><\/span>, meaning &ldquo;the eyes.&rdquo; Thus, <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><em>pros\u014dpon<\/em> <\/span>literally means &ldquo;toward the eyes.&rdquo; It is most often translated as &ldquo;face,&rdquo; but it can also be translated as &ldquo;presence.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h3><strong><u>Meaning Explained<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Paul has been talking about the righteous judgments of God: His righteous decision to show grace to sinners who believe in the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, and His righteous decision to sentence all non-believers to eternal punishment. Yesterday we looked at one aspect of this punishment of unbelievers. Paul identified it as hot, blazing fire. In Luke&rsquo;s gospel account the following description of this torment is described in the story of the rich man and Lazarus, where the rich man was in torment in hades:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#ff0000;\">Then he cried and said, &ldquo;Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.&rdquo;<\/span> (<span style=\"color:#800000;\"><strong>Luke 16:24<\/strong><\/span>)<\/p>\n<p>But even this pales in comparison to the final torment that unbelievers will suffer. According to <span style=\"color:#800000;\"><strong>Revelation 20:15<\/strong><\/span>, &ldquo;<span style=\"color:#000080;\">And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.<\/span>&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>As painful and torturous as this may be, I believe that this is not the worst part of the sentence that will be passed on those who reject the gospel message. Listen to the words of Jesus:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#ff0000;\">And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.&quot;<\/span> (<span style=\"color:#800000;\"><strong>Matthew 8:11-12<\/strong><\/span>)<\/p>\n<p>In this verse, the expression <span style=\"color:#ff0000;\">&ldquo;sons of the kingdom<\/span>&rdquo; is a reference to the Jews, sons of Abraham, who rejected their Messiah. The total absence of the presence of God and His glory will produce such darkness that it will cause those experiencing it to wail and to gnash their teeth. This is the future that is promised to all who reject Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n<h3><strong><u>Application<\/u><\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>It is not our job to punish evil doers. That is God&rsquo;s prerogative and His punishment will be worse than anything we could do.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><strong>In God&#39;s service, for His glory,<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" src=\"http:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/images\/Signature.gif\" style=\"width: 63px; height: 35px; \" \/><\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right; \">Copyright&nbsp;&copy;&nbsp;2012 Will Krause. All rights reserved<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, Truth to Learn Those who reject Jesus Christ will suffer terribly, for eternity! Behind the Words The word &ldquo;punished&rdquo; is translated from the words dik\u0113n tisousin. The word dik\u0113n refers to &ldquo;a judgment, a penalty, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[704,362,2872,2873,2795,256,2659,2871],"class_list":["post-3949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aionios","tag-destruction","tag-eiken-tisousin","tag-everlasting","tag-olethros","tag-presence","tag-prosopon","tag-punished"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd5geA-11H","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3949"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3952,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3949\/revisions\/3952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ministryofgrace.org\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}