Your organization teaches that they will be instantly annihilated (destroyed), but your New World Translation of the Bible reads as follows:
"Jesus’s disciples came to him and said: “Explain to us the illustration of the weeds in the field.” In response he said: “The sower of the fine seed is the Son of man; the field is the world; as for the fine seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; but the weeds are the sons of the wicked one, and the enemy that sowed them is the Devil. The harvest is a conclusion of a system of things, and the reapers are angels. Therefore, just as the weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be in the conclusion of the system of things. The Son of man will send forth his angels, and they will collect out from his kingdom all persons who are doing lawlessness, and they will pitch them into the fiery furnace. There is where their weeping and the gnashing of their teeth will be."
Jesus seems to suggest that hell will be a place of great sadness (weeping) and pain (gnashing of teeth). How are the words of Jesus consistent with instantaneous death?
How would these lawless people have the opportunity to cry and grind their teeth if they were killed in a millisecond?
And when Jesus was asked by his disciples to explain a figurative statement or parable, didn't he give them a clear and literal explanation?
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
Parts of the bible are symbolic and thoroughly explained in our watchtower lessons. Come, visit us and all will be explained!
After 1914, did the Son of man “send forth his angels” to separate the “sons of the kingdom” from “the sons of the wicked one,” the imitation “wheat,” that is, “persons who are doing lawlessness” and who include the “man of lawlessness,” the religious leaders of counterfeit Christianity? The answer must correspond with the facts, and these show that it was in 1919 that the spirit-begotten, anointed “sons of the kingdom,” symbolized by the “wheat,” began to be freed from the “weeds,” or false Christians, that had overrun the religious field of mankind. The “harvest of the earth” was ripe and the time had come for the “Son of man” to thrust in his sickle and reap. The parable reveals that he did this by means of his “reapers,” angels.
In his “illustration of the weeds in the field,” Jesus said: “In the harvest season I will tell the reapers, First collect the weeds and bind them in bundles to burn them up.” (Matt. 13:30) For centuries the clear identity of the “wheat,” or true “sons of the kingdom,” had been obscured by the proliferous “weeds,” or apostate Christians, who claimed to have the heavenly hope as heirs to the Kingdom. Only after 1919, when the truly spirit-begotten Christians were delivered from Babylon the Great, the Devil’s world empire of false religion, did a clear difference become visible between the “wheat” and the “weeds.”
The symbolic “weeds” include all counterfeit Christians, not excluding any modern-day apostates who teach “things that cause stumbling,” as well as “persons who are doing lawlessness.” This would include the “evil slave,” the ‘foolish virgins’ and the “wicked and sluggish slave.” (Matt. 24:48-51; 25:1-12, 14-30) Their being ‘bound in bundles’ ready to be burned up does not represent their being grouped into the various churches and sects of Christendom, for it can hardly be said that the angels are responsible for such apostate church systems. Furthermore, the binding and bundling takes place during the “harvest season,” at the “time of the end,” whereas many of the religions of counterfeit Christianity have existed for centuries. The binding of “weeds” in bundles means that since 1919 the separation between true and imitation Christians has become ever clearer, both in the people’s minds and by actual separation. The “weeds,” or the “sons of the wicked one,” are ‘bound’ inasmuch as the angels see to it that they do not get back in among the “wheat,” or the true “sons of the kingdom.”
Any time Jesus speaks of hell, it is just symbolic of eternal separation from God – never being able to have a relationship with Jehovah. The belief in eternal torment, or any type of pain/sadness at death, has clear pagan origins. It is unbiblical and Jehovah’s Witnesses do not accept such doctrines.
You again?
When will you learn to give up your futile attempt at trying to prove wrong our BIBLE BASED belief of "hell" being nothing more than the common grave of mankind and not some fiery roasting place of eternal suffering or eternal separation from God that God sends wicked people to?
Why is it that people such as yourself who CLAIM to love God seem DESPERATE in trying to show that the God of LOVE and Justice is some sort of cruel monster on a scale that not even Satan himself could ever hope to reach?! One would think that people would be HAPPY to find out the Truth regarding the hell of the Bible. What's wrong with you?
Oh well, until you wake up to the Truth, we who are members of the worldwide Christian congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses will CONTINUE to do what we do best... Proclaim the Truth of God's Word. So let's get to it shall we? Let's go to Revelation 20:10:
"And the Devil who was misleading them was hurled into the lake of fire and sulphur, where both the wild beast and the false prophet already were; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.” (Revelation 20:10).
Rather than being merely abyssed (as he was during the 1,000 Year Reign of Christ), this time Satan, the original serpent, will actually be crushed out of existence, pulverized, completely annihilated as if by fire. Why do we KNOW this to be case?
Simply because “the lake of fire and sulphur” absolutely, positively CAN NOT be a literal place of suffering and torment (Revelation 19:20). The "lake of fire and sulphur" DOES NOT mean conscious torment, but rather, everlasting death, or destruction. Open your eyes, READ and see for yourself how the Bible itself says this at Revelation 20:14 in the King James Version and the Douay Version (shown in the following link): http://bit.ly/uGZ8Jb
Capeesh? Or can you not "see" that the lake of fire means “second death”?! It is the death from which there is NO resurrection, NO coming back from. It is beyond evident that this “lake” is a symbol, because both death and hell (aka Hades / http://bit.ly/sA3aZl ) are thrown into it.
Death and hell CANNOT literally be burned... Can they? They are not tangible things... Are they? On the other hand, death and hell can and will be done away with, or destroyed. Why? Because THAT'S the Bible promise and teaching (which Jehovah's Witnesses proclaim)... THAT'S why!
Furthermore, if Satan were to suffer excruciating torture there for all eternity, Jehovah would have to preserve him ALIVE... would He not? Yet, LIFE is a GIFT from God, NOT a PUNISHMENT. Death is the punishment for sin (Romans 6:23), and according to the Bible at Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10, dead creatures FEEL NO PAIN because death is the OPPOSITE of life. Whatever you can do and feel while alive you CAN'T do and feel when DEAD! It's that simple.
Moreover, we read that death itself, along with Hades, is cast into this same lake of fire and sulfur. Death and Hades cannot suffer pain... Can they?!—Revelation 20:14.
Yet you (and those like you) DEFIANTLY STILL CARRY ON WITH YOUR ERRONEOUS, GOD-DISHONORING, UNGODLY BELIEF?!!
All of what I relayed reinforces the view that the lake of fire and sulfur is symbolic. Further still, the mention of fire and sulfur calls to mind the fate of ancient Sodom and Gomorrah, destroyed by God because of their gross wickedness. When their time came, “Jehovah made it rain sulphur and fire from Jehovah, from the heavens, upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah.” (Genesis 19:24) What befell the two cities is called “the judicial punishment of everlasting fire” at Jude 7. Yet, those two cities DID NOT suffer everlasting torment. Rather, they were blotted out, obliterated for all time, along with their depraved inhabitants. Those cities do not exist today, and no one can say for sure where they were located.
In harmony with this, the Bible itself explains the meaning of the lake of fire and sulfur: “This means the second death, the lake of fire”, says Revelation 20:14. It is clearly the same as the Gehenna that Jesus spoke of, a place where the wicked REMAIN DESTROYED, not tortured forever (Matthew 10:28). It is complete, utter destruction WITHOUT hope of a resurrection. Thus, while there ARE keys for death, Hades (Hell), and the abyss, there is NO MENTION of a key for opening the lake of fire and sulfur (Revelation 1:18; 20:1). Why? Because it will NEVER release its captives.—Compare Mark 9:43-47.
Referring to the Devil as well as the wild beast and the false prophet, John writes at Revelation 20:10b that; "they will be tormented day and night forever and ever”. It is not logical to say that SYMBOLS, such as the wild beast and the false prophet, as well as death and Hades, could suffer torture in a literal way. Hence, we have NO REASON to believe that Satan will be SUFFERING FOR ALL ETERNITY. He is to be ANNIHILATED. The Greek word used here for “torment,” ba·sa·ni′zo, means primarily “to test (metals) by the touchstone.”
I think of it as slightly gnome-like creature announcing, "supply me some chocolate lady! You deprive me of it sooooo lots! you in basic terms enable me eat it two times a month! damn YOU!!" >_< lol