Exposing Chris Date in Debate | Rapp Report Weekly 0029 | Striving for Eternity

The Debate Over Hell and Conditional Immortality

All right, so there was a debate on the topic of hell, like that should be an issue nowadays, and it's not with Jehovah Witnesses. What? Someone that professes to be a Calvinist that doesn't believe in hell?

Well, we have one of the proponents of those debaters here today to discuss that debate, and we're going to see, well, I would argue that he was on the winning.

Side because, well, he agreed with the Bible. Welcome to the Wrap Report with Andrew Rappaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community.

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Church, go to strivingforeternity .org. All right, well, welcome to another weekly Wrap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rappaport, and I am glad you are with us. Some quick announcements. September 27th, that's a Thursday night.

I hope you plan to be at your computer. Some of you have been asking for it. Many of you have been demanding it. Well, we are back. It is going to be a new show called Apologetics Live. It will be with myself and none other than Matt Slick from karm .org.

We will be doing a live two-hour show, eight o 'clock Eastern time, every Thursday night. We will take your calls. It is either going to be a Google Hangout or it might be some other platform. We're not sure that yet, but the website we're setting up for it is apologeticslive .com.

When you go there, you're going to be able to see where to join the call, where to go to watch it. Hopefully, we'll even have a chat built right in. But what I can tell you is I know we're going to be doing it that day.

We are still working out details. However, September 27th, if you go to just before then, apologeticslive .com, we're going to have the information there. Every Thursday, you'll be able to go there to get all the details.

This is for you. You have a challenging question. Maybe you don't believe in Jesus Christ and you want to challenge Matt Slick of karm .org. Come on, we'll take that. This is different than his radio show because you're going to have a longer time we're going to be having some debates coming up.

I think we're trying to work some debates with some Catholics, maybe even a debate slash discussion between Matt Slick and Leighton Flowers. We're going to see. We're trying to talk about that and many other topics.

I don't think the debate that we're hoping for is going to work out because I think our guests today might have demolished any chances of this guy coming on with Matt. But I think that may be off for right now.

We're going to see. But here's the thing. There's other news that if you've been listening to the Daily Report, the Daily Wrap Report, you have been listening to the fact that we have been playing each day, different articles, short articles.

They're two minutes long, so it's not that long. We've been reading to you and giving short comment on the statement on social justice. I encourage you to go to the statement on social justice, go out there and check it out.

It's amazing how many people are telling me that I am racist for signing that statement, that whether I realize it or not, I supported slavery because, oh wait, no, I never owned a slave. Oh wait, no, no one in my family ever owned a slave.

I was told that I, because of the fact that my parents came here, our first generation here, that they received the benefits of living in America and that gave me white privilege. Really? There's been blacks living here for generations after generation.

If just being in America gave me white privilege, I guess they're whiter than me. I'm just saying. I mean, the reality is, is that we will never end racism with racism, but there is no end goal in that.

And that's one of the things we bring out in that statement. One of the things we did in a podcast that we did earlier with Josh Bice, who is the primary editor of the statement, what you end up seeing is there is no end game for this.

The goal is to keep attacking Christianity until they, basically their goal is to, we're silenced. That's when social justice ends. When we get socialism in America and all over the world because they think they'll do it better and Christianity is completely silenced.

It hasn't worked anywhere before, but they think they can do it better as every other socialist and communist has argued. So with that, I would like to introduce our guest today. He has recently done a debate on the topic of hell, and this is my friend, George Alvarado.

George, how are you today? How are you doing, Andrew? So George, you did a debate with, I should first say you're from G220 Radio Ministries. You got a program that you do there. So before we introduce the debate, why don't you talk about G220, which is, you know, we love G220.

I know we've had a long relationship with you guys. And so talk about G220, what the goal is and what your shows are.

G220 Radio, Heresies, and a Conversational Ministry Format

All right. So at G220 Radio, it's Ricky Gantz and Mike Miller and I now. We have various guests on the shows that can be heretics, that can be, you know, very well-known people or lesser well-known people or people who aren't well-known at all.

And we'll talk about a variety of different topics in a very conversational format. You know, we'll debate in a sense, but in very, you know, kind of an open conversation. We've had recently, you know, some big time heretics like Keith Giles in the show, who also, you know, is one of those Rethinking Hell proponents.

But a lot of other heresies that he has a show and talking about homosexuality and whether or not Christians can be homosexual. And, you know, we talk about various different things on a normal everyday basis.

So we try to capture what it would be like to talk and fellowship or just debate. Like if you're on the street or you're on your couch or you're in Walmart somewhere, and we just try to have a sort of a conversational based format to where people can just listen in the conversation, depending on what the topic is.

So we'll have a variety of topics. And some of the biggest things Ricky's doing right now, he's going through the London Baptist Confection. I'm actually going through the Synod of Dort right now with Dr. Cinema, which has been a really good series, very educational.

And the reason why I'm basically doing that is to show that sometimes modern Calvinists, we tend to use history as a bludgeon tool against maybe some people who disagree with us who are other types of Calvinists, quote unquote, or maybe even Minions.

And the Synod of Dort tends to be that one that kind of surrounds the conversation. So going into history, seeing the nuances of history, explaining what happened at that Synod, I think has been very, very useful, very, very helpful.

And it actually is a hallmark as to how things like certain kinds of Arminian theology spread. So anyways, those are some things we're doing at GC20,.

And we're having a great time. So folks know your background, your active duty right now, your background though, which became important for this debate was linguistics.

Oh yeah, linguistics. Yeah. So I have a Bachelors in Linguistics. The reason why I haven't pursued my Masters yet, obviously, is because of time. But even before then, I had plenty of mentors in my life, people that I was able to go to, to talk about language in general, as well as linguistics within the Greek and Hebrew and other things.

So I think most of my Christian walk, I've had various, many influences in my life, whether it's a client I've been able to talk to or mentors, pastors, friends who are all linguists. So God has set me up in a different way to enjoy language and to explore linguistics.

So I definitely enjoy the topic. I enjoy the subject.

I enjoy the academia of the linguistics. Are you saying that serving our country is taking too much time? That's what it sounds like you're saying. Yeah, it's definitely a tough job. So.

Pray for your people who are in the Air Force and the Army and every other brand.

Well, I mean, I can understand you saying that for Army, you know, for like, you know, guys like Ricky. Here we go. Here we go. It's on. All right. We're going to leave the Army Air Force debate aside.

It always comes up. It does because we all know that Army's better. So just saying.

Well, Army and Marines are my hero if it makes you feel any better. They're my heroes.

See, the thing is, is that you're on my show. So you're like going, I can't really challenge him to it. If I was on G220, I think, well, if I was on G220, you'd be outnumbered because Ricky would be on my side.

So I'd still win.

Well, you know, Air Force is usually outnumbered, but you know how we handle things with airplanes.

So don't worry about it. This is true. So let's talk about the debate. You did a debate with Chris Date. Chris Date is from Rethinking Hell. Very good debater. I think you'd agree with that. He's a very good debater.

And we're going to talk about later on what makes him such a good debater, why he is a formidable opponent. But he was very much afraid to debate you, it seemed. I mean, it took a long time to get this debate to happen, didn't it?

Yeah, it took almost, I think, a year and a half, two years, I think, if I'm right about my time slot. So it did take a little bit to try to get him on. But in the beginning, where there didn't want to be a debate, just for clarification, it slowly turned into he'd be willing to do a formal moderated debate.

And the reason why there was such a delay is because I wanted to do more of a conversational debate like we do on the show. And he didn't agree to that. So for the longest time, it was very difficult to try to get us to come together to agree on a format that we can agree to.

And of course, we finally did. And then, you know, that's how.

This came about. And that format was a formal debate and then an informal discussion. So it was actually two separate and two different moderators, one of your selection, one of his selection. And I thought it was well, you know, he wanted the time to debate.

So that was the moderator of your selection. The moderator of his selection was someone that he felt more.

Comfortable with. And the moderator of his selection was somebody who did hold to eternal conscious torment. So he told me before the debate that he felt that would be fair enough. So, you know, that was.

That was a good choice on his part, I guess, to help show that he's not.

Trying to be biased. Yeah. And I want to get into some of the technical things of that debate. It was a very technical debate. But here's the thing I do want to say, what. What is it that you see as the difference between a formal debate and a discussion?

You want a discussion on a formal.

Debate. What's the difference with those? Well, when you do study linguistics, especially discourse analysis, we all know in different contexts, conversations can flow differently, whether it's online in conversation between somebody, you know, depending on the geographic location as well.

The power struggles between the person you're speaking to, as well as the person who's being spoken to, as well as the debate structure. There is times, you know, time you're working against, you know, there's maybe certain kinds of information you could only get out a certain certain kind of time.

You know, we talked about that in the second part of the debate. It's very difficult sometimes to get 15 minutes of information in. So you tend to speed up your speech, maybe to try to get it in, or you slow it down, you have to leave stuff out.

And in conversation, at least you have a little bit more of a freedom with that if you have certain topics you want to get to. And you can actually instantly follow up and follow up and follow up and continually follow up if you want to be able to continually, you know, hit on a specific topic.

And it's a little more free flowing, and necessarily doesn't have this, you know, restrictions that a time debate would. And if you only have an hour slot, obviously, there's that time restriction, but you have a little bit more wiggle room, depending on the direction you want to go.

So, you know, there are pros and cons to every single type of context. And you know, that for us, we wanted to really have a formal informal kind of conversation, I guess. So that way, we can kind of get down to the integrity of some of the base presuppositions of their arguments.

All right. So after this, let's get to, I want to start discussing the debate itself, how you think it went and what the arguments were. So let's discuss that after this.

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Store. Okay, so George, this debate, what was the premise of it? And how do you think it went?

Conditional Immortality Versus Eternal Conscious Torment

Um, you know, the main proposition, you know, was, you know, conditional immortality, true or biblical. And of course, you know, conditional immortality, as they define it, you know, is just talking about life, being the cessation of life, having that being the punishment for sin.

So what we're trying to figure out is, you know, is conditional immortality biblical, but in the debate, you know, I did this purposefully is that I wanted people to understand is that we believe that immortality as well, people who believe in eternal conscious torment is conditional upon believing in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that immortality is defined biblically as not only something that, you know, we don't die in the sense that we are no longer going to go into the second death, or even the first death, we're not going to experiencing anything, any kind of punishment from God.

But life is also defined as Jesus defined in John 17, as knowing Christ. So I definitely in the beginning from the debate says, I believe conditional immortality is biblical. And so most people do. But the idea is how you define life, how do you define death?

How do you define destruction? How do you define, you know, punishment, and that's where it really comes down to the crux. So it's not necessarily is a conditional immortality true is well, how is conditional immortality as a destructionist defines it true?

And that's the reason why I worded that from the beginning of the debate.

Okay, so you use some terms that for some people, maybe new terms, this was a very technical debate that I think you and I both agreed with, and it had to be, because you were really trying to reach out to people in his camp to show the problems that they have technically, and we're going to see if that's a tactic that was necessary later.

But give us some of the definitions, some of the terminology that you're using both in your description and in the debate, so people can,.

If they pick up on. Yeah, so, you know, in conditional immortality, you know, immortality being deathlessness, being physical life. So how we would interpret our death now, you know, if we died, now we're life's body.

Of course, consciousness is the bigger part of it. And, you know, it results in annihilation or cessation of existence. But death is the punishment for sin, instead of eternal conscious torment. So in order for us to have immortality, you know, most people believe, according to what their position is, and unfortunately, some people in our camp do believe this, without knowing it, is that we're born with an innate immortality, that when we die, you know, our spirits will live on forever.

And of course, when we resurrect, we'll go on forever, because the soul is indestructible. Well, some people believe that some people don't, you know, there's just a lot of, you know, controversy behind that, of course, they quote various historical teachers and authors and even contemporary that show that this is what they believe.

So they say that immortality is not innate, it's conditional. And because it's conditional, that means once you stand before God, if you're to be judged as a sinner, you'll be judged as guilty. And of course, the punishment is death by fire.

So that means sooner or later, you're going to be consumed by the fire, and the fire will, you know, turn you to ashes or what have you. And then you'll, you'll be no more. And that's the punishment for sin.

And that punishment lasts forever. They're thus the eternal aspect for them. So that's the basic gist of what conditional immortality teaches is that it's conditional upon believing Jesus Christ, only when you believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ and receive salvation, will you be immortal forever, you'll live forever.

And you'll, you know, be with Christ forever, and no harm of the second death, which is like our first will happen to you. So I don't know if that clarifies.

Anything. Yeah, that's helpful. Now, the second question that I'd have is your background in linguistics. How did that help in this debate? And why I actually, when I first heard your arguments against them, realize that you're specifically skilled to handle this debate in this argument?

Explain to folks why your background helps. Yeah, it helps because when you study linguistics, and you study nuances, that means you study the various ways words can be used in particular contexts. You know, for example, you know, if you remember movie Wreck-It Ralph, when the guy's like, No, I don't.

I don't. I use this example all the time. It's something that people resonate with. Anyways, in the movie, King Candy has a guy who's glasses and Wreck-It Ralph is about to hit him or whatever. And King Candy says, you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses, would you?

And he grabs the glasses from his head and hits him with the glasses. He's like, you hit a guy with glasses, well played. And the reason why that is, is because in comedy, or even language in general, there can be something called ambiguity in language where it can go from one way or the other, where King Candy meant you won't hit me in the face with, you know, a punch.

While I'm wearing glasses, the with turned into an instrument, and he hit him with the glasses. And the word with can have that kind of ambiguity. Well, it's the same thing with words like eternal, or maybe other words that they may use within the language that, you know, whether it's in Greek or English, that some people like, you know, retaking hell, or maybe other groups will capitalize on the utilities of language.

And most people who aren't familiar with how language works, or maybe even some of the nuances of how certain word clusters work together to make a specific meaning, they will probably be oblivious to it, or just be easily cosigning to what they believe.

They'll say, well, it makes sense. They're making a cogent argument, not realizing that there are some subtle nuances that they're taking advantage of. And, you know, that helps when you know about how language works, and you can see right through some of those.

Arguments. In dismantling this, the whole argument that they make over there, rethinking hell, it's all based in the ambiguity of language. They rely on that.

Well, yeah. I mean, they probably would say that they wouldn't. Obviously, they'll think that their position is very clear. But they're, you know, capitalizing on some of the nuances and ambiguities that language can go from one direction to the other.

The reason why this debate hasn't really died, pun intended, because it's because there's, you know, when you look at language, it can go one way or another in certain contexts. But when you look at the language of systematically as a whole, especially when it comes to the New Testament language and how it uses punishment, which is, to me, it seems obvious when you're looking at the systematicness of how the New Testament works, especially the hermeneutic of the New Testament in relationship to the Old, you can see that it's a done deal.

The reason why it's been such a large argument or a predominant argument throughout church history has nothing to do with the fact that, well, it's just because everybody believes it. No. And even in, you know, first century, when they try to say people like Athanasius or Irenaeus believed in conditional immortality, or something like conditional immortality.

I'm sorry, it's a lie, because when I read their writings, and I've asked other people who are scholars for those writings, they all say the same thing, they believe in eternal conscious torment. And I have quotes on our page or my blog, our common salvation .com that goes through some of those things.

So it's really something that I think is very interesting. You know, the whole debate was very challenging, trying to exercise some of the mental capabilities that I had, I didn't know I had. And it stressed me as well, there's some things, there are some huge challenges, but, you know, I'm thankful overall.

For it. All right. Well, after this, what I want to do is I want to talk about the tactics that you and I have seen and also a concern you and I have with this group. So right after this, I want to.

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Now I know George,.

Jeremiah 2911 is your life verse, is it not? No, it's on my pillow though. So when I read,.

It definitely gives me comfort. All right. So you and I have a joint concern that, you know, Chris comes from more conservative circles, claims to be a Calvinist, though I believe, I don't know if you share in this, but I believe given enough time, he's going to give the Calvinism up.

I think he's slowly starting to, but one of the concerns you and I have and a major concern, one I talked to him personally about was the fact that he works with universalists, he works with unbelievers that he knows, and he's not sharing the gospel because the issue of rethinking hell seems to be an idol.

It seems to be more important than the gospel to lost people he works with for this podcast. He has people that he works together, he partners with, right? And I think Paul makes this clear, light and darkness shouldn't be partnered together, but he partners with unbelievers for the purpose of rethinking hell.

Why should that be a concern for us as.

Believers and really for Chris overall? Yeah. As far as him being conservative, the more and more I look at some of the writings, the only thing that he calls himself Calvinist, I think is the only thing that makes him quote unquote conservative.

But like we did in the debate, we talked about how you define life and death. He didn't flinch. He obviously doesn't believe eternal life is defined as knowing Christ. He said it plenty of times, said in the debate, which if you want to watch the debate and go into that, you can see the consequences of that.

And like you said, sooner or later, you're going to have to give something you're going to give. But, you know, it's a concern of mine. I said that right from the beginning of the debate is that for me, it's not so much the topic of annihilationism.

That's such an issue for me. It's ecumenism. There's open theists within the camp. You know, there's people who deny penal substitutionary atonement. You know, there's people who deny original sin. You know, there's people who have put off, you know, things like the inerrancy of scripture and that kind of thing.

And Chris has said, you know, blatantly that he believes that evangelical universalists aren't heretics. And they call them evangelical universalists to separate themselves from secular universalists.

So they try to make that distinction. But nevertheless, it's still an issue. And to be a part of this ministry, I think, is not scriptural. It's not biblical. But this is something that they do. And because they all have in common this redefining of hell or having different views of what hell is.

That's the reason why I think, you know, there is this shared bond here is to try to remove or do away with, distance, demolish, whatever each of their motivations are. You know, I can't go into each of their hearts, but it's to look at the quote unquote scriptural view of what hell is and to have discussion.

When in reality, you can have this discussion. But the problem is their language is as such as if you believe in eternal conscious torment, especially recently, you can't even believe that the atonement because the atonement is, you know, something that we look at when it comes to the punishment and how it relates to hell and death.

So can't even look at that biblically either. And that's some serious language. That's not secondary issues here, you know. So there's a lot of that goes into this discussion. And it's.

Very, very concerning. Yeah, I thought that was one of the things Len picked up on when he debated him was the atonement and how he really is giving up the biblical definition, even the Calvinistic definition, he claims to Calvin's of the atonement.

And so, but there are some reasons that we say he's a very good debater. He's got certain tactics he uses. And this is one of the things I do want to bring out because for people just to listen to him, they can be overwhelmed in thinking that he's making very good arguments.

But I'm going to say I'm not going to speak for you. You may agree. I'm going to say he uses very deceptive techniques to make arguments seem impressive when they're not.

One of them. Yeah, I think one of the, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. Yeah. No, go ahead. Go with the one of them because it's probably going to be what I'm thinking about. The one, the first one I was.

Going to bring out is he talks very quick and drops like thousands of scripture verses. So it sounds like the scriptures are agreeing with him. Or he'll quote men like MacArthur, Piper, or some of the early church fathers to make it sound like they agree with his position.

So yeah. Or, you know,.

In that sense, he'll use their material, whether when it does agree with him or, you know, try to refute it when it doesn't, you know what I mean? And, you know, he's kind of, you know, taking jabs at them, but the whole shotgun approach or machine gun approach to just give you scripture after scripture and scripture or argument after argument after argument, especially on social media online.

I'm sorry, I'm going to put out names because these men are all over the online. It's like the minute you mentioned rethinking hell, these people tend to show up like William Tanksley, Peter Grice, you know, some of the ones who have to defend their ministry and their name will start coming on.

And of course they're going to make their arguments in a way that it seems like everybody just comes out of the woodwork all of a sudden. And that's sort of the same principally, the same kind of tactic, whether you're using it verbally or online forums, where all of a sudden, now all these guys just come out of the woodwork and they have to defend this view.

So it seems overwhelming and overwhelming somebody definitely is a tactic that you shouldn't fall for.

The Traditional View, the Biblical View, and the Apocrypha

Yeah. Well, I experienced that with Chris when I pointed out, which is the second thing I was going to want to bring out. He always refers to our position as the traditional position, even though we argue from the scriptures and he'll argue from the scriptures, but he always seems to want to bring in early church fathers or philosophers, even unbelievers to make his point to, oh, well, you know, not everyone believes that the soul's immortal, arguments like that.

And he defends it from the Apocrypha I've heard him use, all these other writings. My point is, is that the biblical view would be the one that's based on the scriptures alone. We don't need any other writings.

And that's usually how I hear people debate with him. And he'll appeal to early church fathers. He appeals to scripture. It's not that he doesn't, but when I pointed out that he also appeals to early church fathers in his arguments, therefore his would be the traditional view.

Ours would be a biblical view. I experienced exactly what you said. All of a sudden, all these guys start contacting me, all pretending to be like, they're just concerned. They want to make sure things are, that I'm saying things right.

And really what they're doing is they kept trying to trap me in a way that they could then say, oh, see, Andrew was wrong, or Andrew lied, or Andrew did something. And Chris stays silent during that. And then once they think they got something and what they got was really funny.

I remember with me, it was, I posted at the same time someone else posted and I was responding to a post above. And so when I hit send, the other person hit send just before me. So I didn't see theirs until after.

And so the way it laid out, it looked like I was responding to that person and use that, say, oh, see. And I'm like, but you've changed your argument with me three times. You kept different tactics, but it is that mob mentality where they all jump in and to defend, and I think you said it well, to defend their position of rethinking hell.

I really think that that's become an idol where, I mean, for me working with unbelievers, if I'm at a secular job, my concern is their salvation. I'm not going to put sharing the gospel with them aside to promote a position.

Now at a secular job, I'm there to do that work. I'm not there to evangelize, but if I'm doing a ministry, how can you do ministry with someone who is an unbeliever and then not even be concerned about the gospel with them?

To me, that's a real problem. I mean, it's like saying that you're going to pastor a church with an unbeliever, with a universalist, and you guys are going to co-pastor.

Yeah. I mean, they would say that they don't agree with universalism. They'll say that they wouldn't work with them in quote unquote ministry if they just simply have had them on the show to talk about it, or they've been in books with them.

They're not necessarily agreeing or co-signing.

Their position or endorsing their position before the show. He has admitted to me that some of the guys he works with, maybe not on the show, but the guys he works with are unbelievers.

And I'm like No, no. Yeah. No, I'm not disagreeing with what you're saying. What I'm saying is that they're going to backpedal and say this a little bit. They're going to say, we don't endorse these people.

You know what I mean? Yeah, that's fine. I guess not endorsing them, you can make a difference there. But once again, like you said, there's still a concern there. You know what I mean? Why aren't you telling these people that they're heresies?

Well, because they don't believe it. I've actually had people who've contacted me, I've talked to privately even before we get to do this debate. And I even got to talk to one of them before. I guess one of the main hitters, he was a primary commenter on most of these forums on the phone.

And after we were done talking about annihilationism, I asked him, I was like, why don't you believe some of these other positions are heretical? He's like, well, we just don't believe that they are. Do you have any biblical proof that they are?

And we kind of went over some of those things, but they didn't believe that. They didn't think that my position in saying that these people are heretics was valid. So I'm like, well, I know we can agree.

To disagree, but I think you're very dangerous. Yeah, I see a lot of confirmation bias within there. But one of the other things that they do, a big tactic, and one I mentioned earlier, because it is what gave you the advantages, there is a definite reliance on the ambiguity of language within their argumentation.

Ambiguity of Language, Eternal Punishment, and Framing the Argument

Explain that tactic, how Chris uses that tactic,.

Why it's so effective. Well, the main one is the fact that the death, the punishment for sin, eternal punishment, as in Matthew 25, that the punishment for sin is death is an eternal. They'll say, well, we believe it's eternal.

What do you mean you believe eternal? If you're talking about the cessation of existence or life or privation of life, it's a one-time act. But they say that it's eternal in the sense that it's a one-time act and that it lasts forever.

And that's exactly what the scripture had in mind. It's not eternal punishment, eternal punishment, or I'm sorry, it's not eternal punishing, it's eternal punishment. And then they'll go to other scriptures where you'll show like the redemption that was purchased for us.

They'll show how those are this one-time act that lasts forever. Or they'll use the Greek word, the perfect tense, has a one-time action that has abiding results. And they'll kind of go over all these different areas that believe or show that the position is quote unquote valid or viable.

But when you go back to Matthew 25 and you see the prepositional phrase going into eternal fire, and you work that in with the whole text and what it's trying to illustrate, as well as some of the words that they use and look at the rest of the New Testament, you put all this together, you don't necessarily come out thinking, well, that's punishment in the sense of just the death penalty.

But they'll use words in the Greek. They'll use the words in the Septuagint. In every other context, it talks about death or death punishment or capital punishment. Sure. But does that mean that in this context, and if you look at this word with all these other words combined, it changes the meaning.