Does eonian chastisement mean that we'll be rebuked and reprimanded for an entire age?
I suppose it could be a short age.
After this life I think I'd rather just sleep for eternity than go from 50, 60, 70 years of torment and endure an eon of additional horror.
Jeff, if you are speaking of the judgment on the world in the next age, it is clear that God is a just and fair and will chasten everybody individually according to how they lived. If a person has good works they will even be rewarded.
1Cor 3:13 each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is.
v. 14 If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward.
v. 15 If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
So it's not just going to be eon of horrors at all... if you think about it all of the patriarchs and prophets will be raised physical in the next age, even John the Baptist. They have already proven their faith and obedience in God and certainly will not be tormented in judgment, they just need to know the gospel message of Christ Jesus. And there will be lots of babies and children resurrected in the next age as well, they certainly will not need harsh correction either... but the opposite extreme is there will be those that are reprobates that will only understand a very strong arm of correction. All "will learn righteousness" (Isa 26:9), it will just require a great variance of how God will bring that about.
Here is a place Ray had spoke on this.
http://bible-truths.com/lake16-D4.htm ----------------
"The Judgment of God" are scary words for most people. Partly this is due to the Church portraying Judgment as a horrible and fearful thing involving sentencing many to an eternity of insane torture by fire. We will now take a Scriptural look at the doctrine of Gehenna Fire Judgment.
God is presented as the Great Judge over His creation from early Scripture. The first time the word "judge" is found in Scripture:
"...shall not the Judge of all the earth do right" (Gen. 18:25).
Actually this phrase is: "shall not the Judge of all the earth do justice."
"Justice" is translated from the Hebrew mishpat and it means according to Dr. Strong: 'a verdict-favorable or unfavorable.' And our dictionaries add to this: "a quality of being just; fairness." So "justice" is "just and fair" (interestingly John Hagee teaches that an eternity of torture in a literal hell of literal fire is "JUSTICE," and Dr. James Kennedy teaches that hell is "FAIR").
NO, an eternity of torture in fire is not "justice," nor is it "fair," as these two great pillars of heresy contend.
The word "Judge" in this verse is from the Heb: shaphat and means according to Dr. Strong: "judge, to pronounce sentence-to vindicate or punish."
It is clear that they are very similar. God the Judge will, "do JUSTICE," or will "Judge justly," or as King James translates it "do right." And not surprisingly, the New Testament tells us the very same thing:
"Because He [God] has appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world in righteousness..." (Acts 17:31).
Notice that Jesus will [1] judge, [2] the world, [3] in righteousness.
Next let's read one of my favorite verses (Isaiah 26:9):
"When Thy [1] judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants [2] of the world [3] will learn righteousness."
What a marvelous spiritual match. When Jesus Judges the world in righteousness, the world will "learn righteousness."
Ironically, the first time we find the words "justice and judgment" in the Bible is in the very same verse:
"For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment; that the LORD may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him" (Gen. 18:19).
Here we learn that doing "justice and judgment" brings the blessings of God.
Will Jesus and God His Father do the "right" and just thing when it comes to judging this world? Certainly. In the Old Testament we read that God does not change (Mal. 3:6); God the Father does not change (James 1:17); Jesus Christ does not change (Heb. 13:08). Use your God-given minds for a moment and consider the insanity of infinite punishment for finite sins, and the same punishment for both gross and minor sins.
"But the fearful [Gk: timid], and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone: which is the second death" (Rev. 21:08).
Does anyone in their right mind believe that murderers and timid people should be sentenced to the same "eternity of punishment?" Why even most heathen governments match the punishment to fit the nature and degree of a crime. But most Christian theology does not have even the good sense of some pagans.
Even when "many stripes" were administered (even among wicked men), they were to be limited to 40 lashes: Deut. 25:3; Lk 12:47; Acts 16;23; II Cor. 11:24.
To "judge" means to set right, whether it is in chastening or sentencing. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right"-that is to judge justly so as to bring about change.
"When Thy [God's] judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world [everyone] will learn righteousness" (Isaiah 26:9).
When the wicked are left to their own devices, they will NOT learn righteousness, but when God's just judgments are added to the mix, and Jesus judges in righteousness, they cannot but "learn righteousness." Why won't the Church teach these marvelous truths? Well, of course it can't, seeing it is deceived.
God's judgments and the knowledge of His plan and purpose for humanity has reached precious few in the past, but it is prophesied to cover the earth:
"They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Isa. 11:9).
And:
"For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14).
It is an easy thing to turn men (and women) into beasts and heartless criminals. Torturing them or annihilating them would likewise be an easy thing for God to do. But turning vile and demented criminals like Hitler, Saddam, or Charles Manson into godly saints, now that's an accomplishment.
Of course most Christians and theologians and pastors do not believe that God is up to a task this great. Just wait. If God can spiritually transform a criminal like the Pharisee Saul, into the loving Apostle Paul, Saddam and the boys will not challenge God's ability to convince them of their great need of repentance.
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mercy, peace and love
Kat