Anchor Scripture: Deuteronomy 4:20

“But the Lord hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people.”

Throughout the Bible, there are references to a state of torment, disease, or pain as hell or death, just as in our anchor scripture. While there is no denial of the possibility of some kind of burning flame in the judgment process, one must be careful to ascribe that to only the aspects it may apply. As we have seen from scripture, the lake of fire (or the second death) is just one of the phases of the punishments spelt out for disobedience in Lev. 26:14-33.

It is that 7-times multiplication of pain (Matt. 12:43-45) for men who would be unrepentant even after God have given several warnings to them to repent and turn away from their sins. Adam’s disobedience was the beginning of transgression for mankind, and so we are today in the first phase of the torment of sin, lessened only somewhat for believers who would dare exploit the knowledge of the power of the blood of Jesus.

Here is the point of the second death. Death in context of Adam’s transgression, and as seen from several scriptures, is the state of sinfulness or severance of the soul from the holy God (Isaiah 57:17; 59:2, Matt. 8:22). For “in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17).

The scripture in Rev. 20:14 would simply talk about the final death, except that it must agree with Lev. 26 (the shadow), and not to infer an end of the reconciliation process. There is, therefore, a progression. And, just as God has power to put back life in the parts for the first resurrection, He has power also to put back life in the parts that should be condemned in the second or even the ‘third death’ for judgment. God is eternal and Almighty!

Nothing just vanishes, nor can God just vanish; for all things consist of Him. Things rather do change from one form to another, as God enables them. Men becoming spirits at death; water turning into ice or steam, depending on the process it is subjected; and seeds growing into fruit bearing trees. Hydropower converts to electrical energy; and the Word is made flesh, etc. Essentially, this is the law of conservation of matter in science, as proposed by the French Chemist Antoine Lavoisier in 1785. It states that matter can neither be created nor destroyed but can change from one form to another.

As Lev. 26 points out, God will continue the progression as long as it takes to “reconcile all things to Himself.” Now we have already seen that the price of sin paid for at the cross is an eternal appointment upon the person of Christ (Eph. 3:11; Rev. 13:8; Eph. 19, 10). This is why Abraham and others could receive God’s righteousness, which is by faith of Jesus Christ, which they received even before Christ was manifested in the flesh. Explore the conversation further.