Could 1 Corinthians 3:15 be understood as some believers undergoing a temporary second death?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1998.

You ask about 1 Corinthians 3:15, which says:

If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through the fire.

The lake of fire is said to be the second death (see Revelation 20:14, 21:8). The second death is not just another death of the same type as the first death, no more than the 'second man' is just one more instance of the first man.

So as to your suggestion that a true believer who is saved 'so as through the fire' could be understood as undergoing a temporary experience of the second death, the difficulty is that the second death is, by definition, penal. It implies separation from the Lord (see Matthew 25:41).

I would hesitate a long while before I read the end of that verse as if it said that the eternal fire is prepared for the devil and his angels, and for believers who have done unworthy works.

With warmest greetings,