Or it could be that Isaiah is asking a question in verse 14 that he answers in 15.
Isn't it possible for a phrase to have a different meaning in a different context? Or does the phrase "everlasting burnings" always have to mean the same thing to everyone?
Good questions, SL. I'll answer the second one first. Under one of the three laws of logical thought is the law of identity:
In a certain specific context (set of facts and circumstances), a proposition (thing or situation) has only one single meaning.
-Totten, R., Truth-Tests for Worldview, 1998
Now I need to change your question:
--
does the phrase "everlasting burnings" always have to mean the same thing to everyone?
--No. Although for communications sake, most people will understand the general meaning.
--does the phrase "everlasting burnings" always have to mean the same thing to the same person?
Yes, because a change of language indicates a change in the thinking, circumstances, or situation of the individual. Think of it this way: if your friend said today that he was going to kill his girlfriend, would you think he really meant that he was going to kiss her? Words have to have meaning in order to communicate. What do you understand pickle on rat coffee ran down up the inside street?
In order to find the correct meaning of a particular word or phrase, however, we have to research that word or phrases' usage by the person, or person's culture, or perhaps the person's history.
That's what I did. I researched the published culture of LDS through the official writings of the members, including JS. A word could have a unique meaning that differs from what others understand that word to mean, or could have changed meanings through time (example: gay).
A change in language indicates a change in the situation. The LDS materials clearly show historically from their own scriptures through present thinking that everlasting burnings are a description of eternal punishmentthe outer darkness. Yet in the spring of 1844, Smith tells the members that that is where they are heading. This change of language was accompanied by other changes in the doctrine of the LDS Church. It was also around this period that Smith is telling faithful LDS members that God was born of other Gods, God was once a man, God was born through the sexual union of his parents on another planet, and that the LDS have the ability to be Gods.
Backtracking this change of language, we find a change in thinking in Smiths view of heaven and hell. Less than a year before Smiths revelation on the nature of heaven and God, he demonstrated a change of thinking. On Sunday, June 23, 1843 he writes: I see no faults in the Church, and therefore let me be resurrected with the Saints, whether I ascend to heaven or descend to hell, or go to any other place. And if we go to hell, well turn the devils out of doors and make a heaven of it. Where this people are, there is good society. What do we care where were, if the society be good? -History of the Church, V 5, page 517
The change in language and direction did not go unnoticed by others. The Nauvoo Expositor had an article published June 7, 1844 that confirmed this change in Smith and his doctrines. Members of the LDS church wrote this article. It says:
(Joseph Smith) would state that if he had sinned, and was guilty of the charges we would charge him with, he would not make acknowledgment, but would rather be damned; for it would detract from his dignity, and would consequently ruin and prove the overthrow of the Church.
We would ask him on the other hand, if the overthrow of the Church was not inevitable, to which he often replied, that we would all go to Hell together, and convert it into a heaven, by casting the Devil out; and says lie, Hell is by not means the place this world of fools suppose it to be, but on the contrary, it is quite an agreeable place
