freelight
Eclectic Theosophist
That is an interesting romantic metaphor that may have application in those that would come when "all that thirst may drink" but it doesn't nullify the clear promises to destroy the wicked and unrepentant themselves. "Neither root nor branch" means the whole thing. Wheat and tares are likened to individuals, as with sheep and goats. Isaiah and Jesus speak of actual literal corpses being burnt up and consumed.
Of course that 'all consuming fire' could preserve/purify a spirit or soul, OR destroy it,....that's the question. What is destroyed when a soul undergoes the 'second death' or 'DIES' in the ultimate sense? - just the iniquity or the soul itself as well ? - for a universalist,...the fire is the purifying agent and God's infinite Love ultimately triumphs to convert the soul back to its source, while in 'conditional immortality' a soul makes the final choice of self-destruction, where it truly perishes....is no more (disintegrated). There are different metaphysical insights into this 'process' we can speculate over, plus insights from other schools on the subject.