[bearbear]

Originally Posted by aron

Kelly:"The alternative again is not a punitive or purgatorial Hades for so many years, but "to be cast into everlasting fire." Scripture nowhere anticipates for believers such a lot as Mr. G. imagined. .... Those who will not are consigned to everlasting punishment, not to temporary suffering... it is either entering into the kingdom at whatever cost, or to be cast into hell-fire. There is no middle position between the kingdom and irretrievable ruin."

I don't see anywhere in the above a discussion of the type of the Exodus, so prominently and repeatedly displayed to the NT believers, in epistles to the Corinthians and to the Hebrews, as cautionary examples.

So to Kelly et al, out of several hundred thousand who left Egypt, all but two (Joshua, Caleb) were types of 'nominal Christians' who were consigned to everlasting punishment and irretrievable ruin?

And for Moses to die, not on the shores of the Red Sea but on Pisgah overlooking the good land, is of no consequence, then? There is no difference between the shores of Egypt and the shores of the Jordan, right? A miss is as good as a mile, right? Eternal fire for Moses?

And if so, then how is Moses, one of those 'disapproved of and fallen in the wilderness', somehow rehabilitated and seen with Jesus and Elijah on the mountain in the gospels' transfiguration?

Or is Moses somehow exempt of the cautionary pattern of those who fell in the wilderness? And if so, is God a respecter of persons after all?

It is a "clear refutation" by Kelly, yes, but not a very thorough one. I'm neither a 'millenialist' nor a 'purgatorialist', but rather say that here Kelly does a bad job. If you want to make a good case, you should address the other's point, not ignore it. Kelly seems to do the latter. Good for his fellow travellers, but it doesn't advance the discussion in any meaninful fashion. It simply makes his point to his own satisfaction.

Witness Lee made the same error. To think that the other party might even have some ground for their thinking, and to seek some balanced rapprochement with that, was never considered. Instead, the "other" in the discussion was maligned as "dark" and "twisted". That is no discussion at all; nobody learns anything.

It's interesting that Jude 9 describes a dispute between Satan and Michael for the body of Moses. Perhaps Satan laid claim to Moses for his one sin at Meribah which he was punished severely for. But we know Moses made it to heaven because he appears before Jesus at the mount of transfiguration-- and for good reason because he humbly obeyed God in repentance for the rest of his life. Although Moses didn't enter it, unlike the other Israelites of the older generation, God did allow him to see the promised land. Peter talks about the righteous being scarcely saved perhaps for good reason. Pretty scary stuff if you ask me.

1 Peter 4:18
And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”