Hi Mike,

I thank God for you all the time.
So do you believe that PARADISE is the lake of fire? How can a place of eonian torment be a paradise (a PARK)? Perhaps paradise is the place that all go AFTER the lake of fire? In other words, it is the “place” (I believe it is more like a spiritual condition) that the FIERY SWORD guarded from all mankind and the only way TO that paradise is to go THROUGH the fiery sword of God’s Word? In other words, paradise is where the tree of life resides, which of course is Christ and His fullness?
J____

Hi J____,

I think you are right about the fiery sword. That ‘sword’ is God’s Word and it is just as much a “fiery trial” for God’s elect as it is for those who are in the lake of fire. I also appreciate your question about how a park can be a lake of fire? But I want to point out that the ‘fiery sword’ is “at the east of the garden of Eden… the paradise of God”

Gen 3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
Gen 3:24 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.
Rev 2:7 He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst [ Greek- middle] of the paradise of God.

You ask me: How can a place of eonian torment be a paradise (a PARK)? It obviously does not seem that way to begin with. But it becomes a pleasure as we relinquish the flesh and its pulls and acquire more of the mind of the spirit of God:

1Pe 4:12 Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you:
1Co 3:13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire;

These verses speak of the same fire Christ referred to in this next verse. This fiery judgment is even now on the house of God:

Luk 12:49 I am come to send fire on the earth; and what will I, if it be already kindled?
1Pe 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?

The answer to Peter’s question is that for all others who are not now being purged, this purging will take place in the lake of fire:

Rev 20:6 Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years.

You see the Tree of Life is Christ. If we are “in Christ”, we become that fire by having the word in us:

Isa 33:14 The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings?
Isa 33:15 He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood, and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;
Jer 5:14 Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this people wood, and it shall devour them.

‘Fire’ is not uncomfortable in fire, and Christ is not uncomfortable in His own word. The only ones who are uncomfortable are those who oppose and resist God’s word. Just look at how Daniel’s friends dealt with the fire of Nebuchadnezzar’s fiery furnace:

Dan 3:23 And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.
Dan 3:24 Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied, and rose up in haste, [ and] spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king.
Dan 3:25 He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.
Dan 3:26 Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace, [ and] spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came forth of the midst of the fire.
Dan 3:27 And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king’s counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.
Dan 3:28 Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.

The fire is all the way from the “east side of the garden” (Paradise) to the tree itself. “How can a place of torment be Paradise?” It can only be “Paradise” if, like Christ and the ‘three Hebrew children’, you are very comfortable in that fiery “park”.
So what Christ told the thief was that he would be brought up in the second resurrection with a spiritual body, still in need of purification. Purification is accomplished at and by Christ’s right hand:

Heb 1:13 But to which of the angels said he at any time, Sit on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool?

Our enemies are being conquered while we sit at Christ’s right hand. And what is it like to be seated with Christ at His right hand?

Psa 16:11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

So while the word ‘fire,’ and the words ‘lake of fire’ do not sound like any place where “fulness of joy” and “pleasures for evermore” could possibly be enjoyed, it is nevertheless true that our God who “is a consuming fire” gives us the ability to experience those very pleasures by actually becoming that consuming fire. It is spirits which are purged by this symbolic fire. Neither the fire nor those cast into it are physical:

1Co 15:42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption:
1Co 15:43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power:
1Co 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

The thief, along with Satan and all of his messengers, will then go into the fiery experience which you and I are even now going through. The more accustomed to the fire we become, being conformed to the image of Christ, the more comfortable we are in that fire. Only through the experience of relinquishing this vessel of clay do we come to be completely at home in the fire of God’s Word. Only then does a place of torment for the carnal mind become a “garden of God,” a place for “the Tree of Life, in the middle of the paradise of God,” for the mind of the overcomers.
I hope this has answered your question; “How can a place of eonian torment be a paradise (a PARK)?” Your summation is exactly right “the only way TO that paradise is to go THROUGH the fiery sword of God’s Word?”
Mike