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B. -- Yes, and your other idea of the purifying effect of the second death vanishes with it.

A. -- Perhaps the meaning was that the flood did not purify its victims, but the earth on which they lived.

B. -- In that case the analogy does not serve your purpose. I would readily agree that the burning up of the elements

was a purifying of the earth, but what you have been trying to prove is that it purified or preserved its victims. I

believe with you that the flood foreshadows the lake of fire, and the inspired words are `destroy' and `curse', not

`purify' and `vivify'. Our chief purpose at the moment is the question, Does Scripture warrant a resurrection from

the lake of fire? I believe you must agree that it does not.

A. -- I am afraid I must. I am reluctant to give up the idea, for it is the last position left.

A. -- You have said, however, in one of your articles that the second death was unrevealed at the time when

1 Corinthians 15 was written. There I think you are mistaken. An aionion fire prepared for the Devil and his angels

was already the subject of revelation (Matt. 25:41).

B. -- Where do we read that the Devil and his angels are cast into the second death?

A. -- In Revelation 20.

B. -- Will you read the passage.

A. --

`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' (Rev. 20:10).

B. -- But that lake of fire was burning at the commencement of the Millennium (Rev. 19:20). Aionion fire is

Gehenna, as you can see by comparing Matthew 18:8,9, and is connected with Isaiah 66:24 (see Mark 9:48). This

aionion fire must be local if it is burning right through the Millennium, and is accessible from Jerusalem, when all

flesh come up to worship (Isa. 66:20,23).

The lake of fire, however, spoken of in Revelation 20:14,15 is:

(1). After the great white throne.

(2). Has no reference to the Devil and his angels, and

(3). Is specifically called the second death which Gehenna is not, and, by the parallel of 2 Peter 3:12, involves

both the heavens and the earth.

A. -- I see that I am mistaken. You must pardon me if I am not easily convinced.

B. -- We have not time to go into details as to other phases of the subject, but I should like to ask you who they are

which die the second death.

A. -- I believe that everyone that appears before the awful light of the great white throne dies the second death.

B. -- Will you read the literal translation of Revelation 20:15?

A. -- (Reads), `And if anyone was not found written in the book of life, he was cast into the lake of fire'.

B. -- Do you not see how intensely individual the words `if anyone' are?

A. -- Now that you point it out, I confess they do appear so.

B. -- The judgment here is twofold; one out of the books, the other out of the book; the books being a judgment of

works, the book being a question of life or death. You have made two assumptions. First you have supposed that all