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The Lake of Fire: Source of Two BaptismsWikipedia: The lake of fire is a concept that appears in both the ancient Egyptian and Christian religions. In ancient Egypt, it appears as an obstacle on the journey through the underworld which can destroy or refresh the deceased. In Christianity, it is as a place of after-death punishment of the wicked. The phrase is used in five verses of the Book of Revelation. In the biblical context, the concept seems analogous to the Jewish Gehenna, or the more common concept of Hell. The image of the lake of fire was taken up by the early Christian Hippolytus of Rome in about the year 230 and has continued to be used by modern Christians. Ancient Egyptian religion Fiery rivers and lakes in the underworld are mentioned in works such as the Coffin Texts and the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Around their edges sit flaming braziers or baboons. Ra would pass through this lake on his journey through the Duat, renewing his boat. Chapter 126 of the Egyptian Book of the Dead is associated with this vignette and the text is addressed to the "four baboons who sit in the prow of the Barque of Re." The lake was one of the dangers encountered on the journey through the Duat and had a dual nature. The baboons who guarded the pool were a force that could refresh and protect the deceased if they knew the correct recitation or destroy them if they did not. In the 21st Dynasty, human figures are depicted within the lakes. These represent enemies of the king or gods and their inclusion within the pools ensures their permanent destruction. In this way, the deceased could avoid meeting a similar fate, and be victorious over the forces of chaos like Ra. Am-heh, whose name means "devourer of millions" or "eater of eternity", is a hunting dog headed god from the underworld who lived in a lake of fire. Christianity Mark has Jesus himself use the image of a punishing unquenchable fire: Mark 9:43 KJV: "And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched." and later in Mark 9:49 KJV: “For everyone will be salted with fire. 50 Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” The Book of Revelation The Book of Revelation has five verses that mention a "lake of fire" (Ancient Greek: λίμνη τοῦ πυρός, romanized: limne tou pyros): Revelation 19:20, KJV: "And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshiped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone." Revelation 20:10, KJV: "And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever." Revelation 20:14-15, KJV: "Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire." Revelation 21:8, ESV: "But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death." A commonly accepted and traditional interpretation is that the "lake of fire" and the "second death" are symbolic of eternal pain, pain of loss and perhaps pain of the senses, as punishment for wickedness. However, the Greek words translated "torment" or "tormented" in English come from the root βάσανος, basanos with the original meaning of "the testing of gold and silver as a medium of exchange by the proving stone" and a later connotation of a person, especially a slave, "severely tested by torture" to reveal truth. Denominational views Anabaptism Anabaptist Christians distinguish between the intermediate state that one enters after death, and the final state after the Last Judgment: ARTICLE XVIL OF THE INTERMEDIATE STATE: We believe that in the interval between death and resurrection, the righteous will be with Christ in a state of conscious bliss and comfort, but that the wicked will be in a place of torment, in a state of conscious suffering and despair. Lu. 16:19–31; 23:43; Phil. 1:23; II Cor. 5:1–8; I Thes. 5:10; II Pet. 2:9 (R.V.).
Restorationism Jehovah's Witnesses interpret the "lake of fire" and "second death" of the Book of Revelation as referring to a complete and definitive annihilation of those cast into it. Seventh-day Adventists believe in annihilation as well. They too believe that the lake of fire passage is referring to extinction, not to an eternal place of torment as understood in the mainstream Protestant interpretation. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other churches within the Latter Day Saint Movement read of a concept of the "lake of fire" in the Book of Mormon, in several passages. The most descriptive instance of a "lake of fire" in the Book of Mormon occurs in Jacob 6:10, which reads, "Ye must go away into that lake of fire and brimstone, whose flames are unquenchable, and whose smoke ascendeth up forever and ever, which lake of fire and brimstone is endless torment." The Book of Mormon also refers to the lake of fire as a state of second death or spiritual death, where there is no hope for redemption or salvation until after the resurrection or, for sons of perdition, never. Third century Hippolytus of Rome (d. 235) pictured Hades, the abode of the dead, as containing "a lake of unquenchable fire" at the edge of which the unrighteous "shudder in horror at the expectation of the future judgment, (as if they were) already feeling the power of their punishment". The lake of fire is described by Hippolytus unambiguously as the place of eternal torment for the sinners after the resurrection. 20th-century views The Catholic Portuguese visionary Lúcia Santos reported that the Virgin Mary (Our Lady of Fatima) had given her a vision of Hell as a sea of fire: Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. Universalist eschatology Early Christian Universalists, most notably Origen of Alexandria (c. 184 – c. 253), and Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 – c. 395), understood the lake of fire as a symbolic purifying fire used to eliminate the dross from the gold, or a "refiner's crucible". Origen refers to the "lead of wickedness" that must be refined out of the gold. Origen obtained his Universalist views, known then as apocatastasis, from his mentor Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215), who was a student of Pantaenus. Origen explained the refining metaphor in response to a philosopher named Celsus who accused Christians of representing God as a merciless tormentor armed with fire. In the view of Origen: Our God is a 'consuming fire' in the sense in which we have taken the word; and thus he enters in as a 'refiner's fire' to refine the rational nature, which has been filled with the lead of wickedness, and to free it from the other impure materials which adulterate the natural gold or silver, so to speak, of the soul. 19th-century scholar Charles Bigg summarized Origen's view as, "Slowly yet certainly the blessed change must come, the purifying fire must eat up the dross and leave the pure gold. One by one we shall enter into rest, never to stray again. Then when death, the last enemy, is destroyed, when the tale of his children is complete, Christ will 'drink wine in the kingdom of his Father.' This is the end, when 'all shall be one, as Christ and the Father are one,' when 'God shall be all in all.'" In the view of Gregory of Nyssa, "when death approaches to life, and darkness to light, and the corruptible to the incorruptible, the inferior is done away with and reduced to non-existence, and the thing purged is benefited, just as the dross is purged from gold by fire." Further evidence corroborating their interpretation of the lake of fire as a "refiner's crucible" is that the Greek word commonly translated as "lake" also refers to something small, like a pond or a "pool", as translated in the Wycliffe and New American Bible (NABRE). Perhaps a font-pan of the abyss? In Matthew 3:11, Jesus was claimed to be the one who Baptizes with fire: "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire." (KJV). The concept of baptism by 'fire and the Holy Spirit' lies behind the Consolamentum rite of the Cathars or Albigenses. In ancient Egyptian tradition, the Lake of Fire is explained as follows: "To the ancient Egyptians, the sun god traversed the sky in a great barque, which carried both the god and his retinue. As the sun set on the western horizon, throwing orange flames across the foothills of the desert, the barque would plunge into the dark chasms of the netherworld, arriving first in a marshy and fecund land, filled with stagnant ponds and reeds, known as the Waters of Osiris. After passing through these peaceful waters, the barque of the sun god would strike a far unfriendlier shore: By the fourth hour of the night, the barque reached Rostau, the vast desert realm of the falcon god Sokar, where the boat was borne by snakes rather than sailing of its own volition. Passing into this realm of danger and desiccation, the sun god came to a colossal pyramid enclosed by a lake of fire. Magical protections guarded the monument, cast by two birds perched atop it. The birds were Isis and Nephthys, the wife and sister of the mighty Osiris, ruler of the dead, whose body lay entombed inside the pyramid." The Lake of KnivesWhat's more, in ancient Egyptian tradition, there was likewise a lake which was referred to as the "Lake of Knives" (PDF Download Here). The Lake of Knives and Lake of Fire are both symbolic of the higher elements, and both figure in with first century Judea in that Zechariah was a fire baptizer and the Sicarii whom revolted against the Romans and the corruption of the temple were said to have been named after the knives they carried. The Flaming SwordMost likely, the flaming sword is synonymous with the lakes of fire and knives. Again, Wikipedia: Flaming sword (mythology)A flaming sword is a sword which is glowing with a flame which is produced by some supernatural power. Flaming swords have existed in legends and myths for thousands of years. According to the Bible, a flaming sword (Hebrew: להט החרב lahat chereb or literally "flame of the whirling sword" Hebrew: להט החרב המתהפכת lahaṭ haḥereb hammithappeket) was entrusted to the cherubim by God to guard the gates of Paradise after Adam and Eve were banished (Genesis 3:24). Scholars have variously interpreted the sword as a weapon of the cherubim, as lightning, as a metaphor, as an independent divine being, or even as a figurative description of bladed chariot wheels. Genesis 3:24 KJV: "So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." In Kabbalah, the flaming sword represents the order which the sefirot were created in, also known as “the path of the flaming sword.” Dumah is an angel mentioned in Rabbinical literature and popular in Yiddish folklore. Isaac Bashevis Singer's Short Friday (1964), a collection of stories, mentions Dumah as a "thousand-eyed angel of death, armed with a flaming sword". The sword is otherwise associated with various angels, such as the archangel Uriel, Camael or Jophiel. Christianity Eastern Orthodox tradition (as expressed in the Lenten Triodion) says that after Jesus was crucified and resurrected, the flaming sword was removed from the Garden of Eden, making it possible for humanity to re-enter Paradise. Gnosticism The ancient Gnostic codex On the Origin of the World predicts that the kings under the archons will be drunken from the flaming sword during the end times. Germanic mythology In Norse mythology, the weapon wielded by the giant Surtr is referred to as a "flaming sword" (Old Norse: loganda sverð) by Snorri Sturluson in Gylfaginning 4, of the Prose Edda. Snorri immediately afterwards quotes a stanza from his poetic source, (Völuspá 52), where it is stated that Surt has fire with him, and that his sword shines with the "sun of the gods of the slain". However, it has been argued that the poem might be stressing the fiery glare of Surtr himself more than the sword. The relevant kenning from the quoted poem, svigi lævi ("destruction of twigs"), is usually interpreted to mean "fire".[a] However, Henrik Schück interpreted the kenning as referring to a sword, emending the phrase to svigi læva to identify it with the sword Lævateinn in Fjölsvinnsmál. Snorri paraphrases the strophe of the poem a second time in Gylfaginning 51, merely saying: "Surt rides first, and before him and after him is burning fire", afterwards requoting more extensively around the same strophe (Völuspá 48–56). The possibility that this sword imagery was inspired by Christian writings have been speculated. [a] In the original text, með svigi lævi "with the destruction of twigs", in the dative case. Celtic legend According to the Welsh triads, the Dyrnwyn ('White-Hilt'), one of the Thirteen Treasures of the Island of Britain, is said to be a powerful sword belonging to Rhydderch Hael, one of the Three Generous Men of Britain. When drawn by a worthy or well-born man, the entire blade would blaze with fire. Rhydderch was never reluctant to hand the weapon to anyone, hence his nickname; Hael (the Generous), but as soon as the recipients learned of its peculiar properties, they always rejected the sword. Hindu and Buddhist (Dharmic) sources The deity Acala (known as Fudō Myōō in Japan) is depicted in Buddhist art holding a sword which may or may not be flaming and sometimes described only generically as a treasure sword (宝剣, hōken) or as a vajra-sword (金剛剣, kongō-ken), as the pommel of the sword is shaped like a talon-like vajra (金剛杵, kongō-sho). In Hinduism, Kalki (Sanskrit: कल्कि) also called Kalkin or karki, is the prophesied tenth and final incarnation of Hindu God Vishnu to end the Kali Yuga, one of the four periods in the endless cycle of existence (Krita) in Vaishnavism cosmology. The end of Kali Yuga states this will usher in the new epoch of Satya Yuga in the cycle of existence, until the MahaPralaya (the Great Dissolution of the Universe). Kalki is described in the Puranas as the avatar who rejuvenates existence by ending the darkest and destructive period to remove adharma and ushering in the Satya Yuga, while riding a white horse with a fiery sword. The description and details of Kalki are different among various Puranas. In Vajrayana/Tibetan Buddhism, the flaming sword represents specifically wisdom-piercing-ignosis, and is depicted in the *right* hand of any Buddha in a T'hangka painting, whereas the *left* side of the same Buddha shows the BEing, instead of DOing, e.g. being the meanings of a particular dharma, as symbolized by a flower springing from their left hand, with some particular dharma text being in the open flower, to their left. Take a look at any such thangka ( pronounced t'hangka, but usually in English spelt thangka, which misleads English readers, because it is hard-T-then-H, not TH sound ) painting, and you will see the left-brain/right-body and right-brain/left-body instruction is consistent, and particularly see Manjushri for an example of the flaming-sword-which-pierces-ignosis. It can be represented as a sword made of flame, or as a conventional metal sword with flames about it, either way. The Fiery Tongues of PentecostActs 2 (KJV) The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost For reference, although in Christianity the Pentecost is celebrated on the 49th day (seventh Sunday) after Easter, its actual name means "fiftieth" (pente-cost), and is in reality derived from the Jewish Shavuot festival which takes place on the fiftieth day after Passover, and which marks the beginning of the wheat harvest season in ancient Israel.
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