Hell.....

[aiki]

So, essentially, God is incapable of forgiving sin without transferring the punishment to another, and causes pain that has no purpose or effect. Good to know that "love" can torture people.

Why the sarcasm? I'm not being sarcastic with you. I don't like the doctrine of eternal punishment. But it is there in the Bible regardless. And so I defend it. My goal isn't simply to get up your nose.

Punishment is not about remediation. It's goal is not to transform and/or improve but to enact just suffering upon evildoers/lawbreakers. So Hell, as divine punishment, is not supposed to remediate, but cause the unrepentant wicked just suffering.

I don't know that God is incapable of forgiving sin without fully satisfying the demands of His justice. That is certainly how it appears in Scripture. And it makes sense that God's perfect love must also be just. God could, perhaps, have made a great many things very different than they are. But these speculations don't really have any bearing on what is. Our reality is that the "wages of sin is death" - the "second death" in Hell. And God ordained that He would, in the Person of Christ, make a way for us to escape the death our sin incurs by satisfying the demands of His justice on our behalf.

It has always struck me as...odd how people, in an effort to deny the just punishment of Hell, end up condemning the mercy, grace and love of God expressed in the Atonement.

Hell is torment, yes, but it is also just punishment. Should God just wink at Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin and tell them that the mass murders they committed are quite all right? Should God meet Jeffrey Dahmer at the gates of His kingdom and say, "Surprise! I'm just going to forget all the awful things you've done! Come on in!" Should God's love be blind to our evil? If not, what measure of divine disapproval and punishment is appropriate? How can we who are steeped in sin see clearly enough to advise a perfectly holy God in this matter? Inevitably we are going to suggest a response that reflects our own ease with sin rather than the holy perfection of God.

The pain caused by love results in change. Tell me, please, what exactly does ANYONE gain from people being endlessly tortured for eternity?

Love must result in change. Okay. But must that change always be life-enhancing for all involved? What about the love of a father who kills the rabid dog that is about to savage his child? What about the love of a husband who kills the man who is trying to rape his wife? What about the love of a mother who shoots the thug breaking into her home in order to protect her children? Love is a central factor in each instance but it does not produce a positive outcome for all. And in these instances I've described not acting to the harm of the wrongdoer would be an immoral thing to do. Why, then, do we object when God does likewise and acts in love, holiness and justice, but to the harm of wrongdoers?

What do we gain by the punishment of the unrepentant wicked in Hell? We are blessed to witness the perfect, divine justice of an utterly holy God. We see in the terrible justice of Hell just how deeply awful our sin is and how great a thing it was for God reach into it and save all those who would be saved (see Lu. 7:36-47. The unrepentant wicked gain in an eternity in Hell what they desired in life: separation from God. And so on.

God doesn't gain anything.

His just and holy will is accomplished. His promise to the wicked is fulfilled. His terrible but pure and just and righteous wrath is put on display in His judgment of the wicked.

The men and women in hell don't gain anything. Unless you're going to tell me it is all temporary, then there is nothing they gain from it.

Hell is not intended as a place of positive gain. As I said, it is a place of just punishment.

We on earth do not stand to gain anything from it, either.

We see the perfect justice of God is done. No one "gets away with it." Every wicked, vile, selfish, disgusting, evil thing we do sees the light of God's truth and justice and is properly punished. We see also just how totally holy God is and how totally corrupt and desperate our sin is. As I've pointed out, the severity of Hell communicates to us the incredible vileness and depth of our sin.

So what is gained from it? Or is it purposeless pain, or is the pain simply the desire of God? In the first case, it eliminates the love of God. In the second, it does the same. If God desires the pain of others, then He desires that they perish.

Punishing the wicked does not eliminate the love of God any more than punishing criminals means the society that does so is without love. That would be a silly thing to assert in the latter instance - and in the former.

Remember, forgiveness is extended to ALL mankind, not just to those who accept.

But God's forgiveness is not applied to all; only to those who accept it in the Person of Christ.

The people in hell have already been forgiven by God.

Their sins have been paid for but they have not availed themselves of the reconciliation achieved for them in the atoning work of Christ on the cross. And because they did not, they died under God's condemnation and wrath (see Jn. 3:16-20, 36)

If He had been irreversibly offended, then not even Christ Himself could reverse that, as we know that God does not change.

Jesus is God. He acts as such. To suggest Christ could do something that would not effect God is to misunderstand that he is God.

But to become offended, one must necessarily change, which means one must be bound by the laws of time. So again, how can we offend God?

How indeed? How do we grieve God the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30)? How is God made wrathful by our sin (Ro. 1:18)? And why can't God work within time and yet remain transcendent to it? Why when entering time must He bound by it?

The logic of us offending God is not logical.

Isaiah 55:8-9
8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord.
9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

Selah.

 

[BobRyan]

Real does not require a place or location. Salvation is real,

Christ is in Heaven - sinners are on earth - getting saved. Place... and ... location."I go to prepare a place for you and if I go -- I will come again and receive you to myself that WHERE I am THERE you may be also" John 14.

Lake of Fire in Rev 20 is on earth -- place... and ... location. That is how John describes hell - as the lake of fire.

So tell me, then, where in the physical universe does heaven and hell exist?

Because you are going to hop in your space-scooter and go to heaven once you know where in the Universe the Angels and the Hebrews 8 sanctuary is?

Really? That is a "reason" for rejecting the Bible points already given - including Christ Himself telling us that heaven is a place in John 14? And of course Revelation tells us that the throne of God is where the Tree of Life is and where the water of life is.

The Garden of Eded - was a place and had location.
this Earth is a place and has location.
Adam and Eve were real - and had location on this Earth.
Heaven is real. the Throne of God in Rev 22 and in Daniel 7 is real and the myriads and myriads of beings in Dan 7 are all real and all have "location".

What part of this is difficult?

And why does a place wherein noetic beings, that is, beings that do not have physical form

That sounds like pure fiction.

In the dark ages lots of fiction would have gotten past the masses - that does not work any more.

 

[BobRyan]

Even if the Lake of Fire was real and you interpret that passage literally, it seems clear that it was burning before the wicked, Satan, and demons were sent there.

Death by fire and brimstone have happened before - and will happen again - and Jude 7 says this for Sodom and Gomorrah not just those in Rev 20 and the Lake of Fire. But none of those past examples have quite the permanence because in Rev 20:5-9 all the wicked are raised up after the 1000 years. You can be resurrected after the first death - but after what Rev 20 calls the "second death".

 

[BobRyan]

Even if the Lake of Fire was real .

You have stated that preface very well.

That is a real important distinction - for those that condemn the Bible doctrine that the Lake of Fire is real and burns up real people "Fear Him who is able to DESTROY both body and soul in fiery hell" Matt 10:28

 

[BobRyan]

The wicked die now, but the soul does not.
Isaiah 66 ends with events as to the new earth and
the wicked dead are noted as their worm dieth not.

That is true. --


Isaiah 66
22 “For just as the new heavens and the new earth
Which I make will endure before Me,” declares the Lord,
“So your offspring and your name will endure.
23 “And it shall be from new moon to new moon
And from Sabbath to Sabbath,
All mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the Lord.
24 “Then they will go forth and look
On the corpses of the men
Who have transgressed against Me.
For their worm will not die
And their fire will not be quenched;
And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”


Malachi 4
“For behold, the day is coming, burning like a furnace; and all the arrogant and every evildoer will be chaff; and the day that is coming will set them ablaze,” says the Lord of hosts, “so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.” 2 “But for you who fear My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. 3 You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the Lord of hosts.

2 Peter 2
6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;

Jude 7
7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.

Matt 10
28 Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in fiery hell.

 

[sculleywr]

Why the sarcasm? I'm not being sarcastic with you. I don't like the doctrine of eternal punishment. But it is there in the Bible regardless. And so I defend it. My goal isn't simply to get up your nose.

Punishment is not about remediation. It's goal is not to transform and/or improve but to enact just suffering upon evildoers/lawbreakers. So Hell, as divine punishment, is not supposed to remediate, but cause the unrepentant wicked just suffering.

I don't know that God is incapable of forgiving sin without fully satisfying the demands of His justice. That is certainly how it appears in Scripture. And it makes sense that God's perfect love must also be just. God could, perhaps, have made a great many things very different than they are. But these speculations don't really have any bearing on what is. Our reality is that the "wages of sin is death" - the "second death" in Hell. And God ordained that He would, in the Person of Christ, make a way for us to escape the death our sin incurs by satisfying the demands of His justice on our behalf.

It has always struck me as...odd how people, in an effort to deny the just punishment of Hell, end up condemning the mercy, grace and love of God expressed in the Atonement.

Hell is torment, yes, but it is also just punishment. Should God just wink at Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin and tell them that the mass murders they committed are quite all right? Should God meet Jeffrey Dahmer at the gates of His kingdom and say, "Surprise! I'm just going to forget all the awful things you've done! Come on in!" Should God's love be blind to our evil? If not, what measure of divine disapproval and punishment is appropriate? How can we who are steeped in sin see clearly enough to advise a perfectly holy God in this matter? Inevitably we are going to suggest a response that reflects our own ease with sin rather than the holy perfection of God.



Love must result in change. Okay. But must that change always be life-enhancing for all involved? What about the love of a father who kills the rabid dog that is about to savage his child? What about the love of a husband who kills the man who is trying to rape his wife? What about the love of a mother who shoots the thug breaking into her home in order to protect her children? Love is a central factor in each instance but it does not produce a positive outcome for all. And in these instances I've described not acting to the harm of the wrongdoer would be an immoral thing to do. Why, then, do we object when God does likewise and acts in love, holiness and justice, but to the harm of wrongdoers?

What do we gain by the punishment of the unrepentant wicked in Hell? We are blessed to witness the perfect, divine justice of an utterly holy God. We see in the terrible justice of Hell just how deeply awful our sin is and how great a thing it was for God reach into it and save all those who would be saved (see Lu. 7:36-47. The unrepentant wicked gain in an eternity in Hell what they desired in life: separation from God. And so on.



His just and holy will is accomplished. His promise to the wicked is fulfilled. His terrible but pure and just and righteous wrath is put on display in His judgment of the wicked.



Hell is not intended as a place of positive gain. As I said, it is a place of just punishment.



We see the perfect justice of God is done. No one "gets away with it." Every wicked, vile, selfish, disgusting, evil thing we do sees the light of God's truth and justice and is properly punished. We see also just how totally holy God is and how totally corrupt and desperate our sin is. As I've pointed out, the severity of Hell communicates to us the incredible vileness and depth of our sin.



Punishing the wicked does not eliminate the love of God any more than punishing criminals means the society that does so is without love. That would be a silly thing to assert in the latter instance - and in the former.


But God's forgiveness is not applied to all; only to those who accept it in the Person of Christ.



Their sins have been paid for but they have not availed themselves of the reconciliation achieved for them in the atoning work of Christ on the cross. And because they did not, they died under God's condemnation and wrath (see Jn. 3:16-20, 36)



Jesus is God. He acts as such. To suggest Christ could do something that would not effect God is to misunderstand that he is God.



How indeed? How do we grieve God the Holy Spirit (Eph. 4:30)? How is God made wrathful by our sin (Ro. 1:18)? And why can't God work within time and yet remain transcendent to it? Why when entering time must He bound by it?



Isaiah 55:8-9
8 "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the Lord.
9 "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

Selah.

There is nothing just about an infinite punishment for a finite action. The problem is whether Scripture was talking about the NATURE of God OR our PERCEPTION of God's actions. If Scripture says to us "be angry, and do not sin", then God must, by requirement that He is perfect, follow that same rule in regards to His anger. When it says to parents to not overly burden your children, since God is perfect,He will not overly burden His children, either, which includes all of mankind.

Justice gives punishment that matches the action. Finite punishment for finite actions. Consequences match the severity of the actions. There is no way in which a finite being can cause an infinite consequence. There is a limit to what we can do. Unless an infinite being ADDS to the action itself, a finite being cannot cause infinite consequences. Infinite begets infinite. Finite begets finite. The only source of the infinite consequence can be God, which means that God created something for the sole purpose of causing people pain.

However, it never says in Scripture that God intends for people to feel pain. It says pain is in hell. But it does not say that God is the Cause of the pain.

 

[sculleywr]

Christ is in Heaven - sinners are on earth - getting saved. Place... and ... location."I go to prepare a place for you and if I go -- I will come again and receive you to myself that WHERE I am THERE you may be also" John 14.

Lake of Fire in Rev 20 is on earth -- place... and ... location. That is how John describes hell - as the lake of fire.



Because you are going to hop in your space-scooter and go to heaven once you know where in the Universe the Angels and the Hebrews 8 sanctuary is?

Really? That is a "reason" for rejecting the Bible points already given - including Christ Himself telling us that heaven is a place in John 14? And of course Revelation tells us that the throne of God is where the Tree of Life is and where the water of life is.

The Garden of Eded - was a place and had location.
this Earth is a place and has location.
Adam and Eve were real - and had location on this Earth.
Heaven is real. the Throne of God in Rev 22 and in Daniel 7 is real and the myriads and myriads of beings in Dan 7 are all real and all have "location".

What part of this is difficult?



That sounds like pure fiction.

In the dark ages lots of fiction would have gotten past the masses - that does not work any more.

So we are to believe that Christ is a seven-eyed sheep?

Real =/= physical. The Father is real, but has no physical form. The Spirit is real, but has no physical form. The angels are real, but have no physical form.

It is not a requirement that something have physical form to be real. And non-physical beings, beings which have no bodies, do not need to have a physical abode. It is just as plausible that God used something we could understand to communicate something more important about a place we couldn't even begin to imagine, since we can do that with things in the physical universe that we can't begin to fully understand.

 

[BobRyan]

Jude 7
7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.


A Grammar of the Greek New Testament, Robertson made the following comment on this term:

The sense of “different” grows naturally out of the notion of duality. The two things happen just to be different…. The word itself does not mean “different,” but merely “one other,” a second of two. It does not necessarily involve “the secondary idea of difference of kind” (Thayer). That is only true where the context demands it (1934, p. 748, emp. added).

 

[BobRyan]

So we are to believe that Christ is a seven-eyed sheep?

Does the fact that some symbols are used in Revelation also mean there is no literal devil, no literal God, no literal heaven, no literal earth, no literal saints, no literal angels, no literal lake of fire in Rev 20??

Please be serious.

 

[BobRyan]

It is not a requirement that something have physical form to be real. And non-physical beings, beings which have no bodies, .

Without going into dark ages mythology or paganism please define for us one created being in all the universe that the Bible says - has no physical description, no hands, no feet, no wings, no form ...

Since I am not Catholic - and neither are one or two others that are posting on this subject - we will need a 'sola scriptura' authority.

 

[BobRyan]

Okay, let's stay in the text. What do you think Jesus means when He says those in the blazing furnace will be weeping and gnashing their teeth?

And non-believers despise God because the light exposes their darkness, not because of an eternal Hell.

1. Pain and suffering - due to literal fire and brimstone would not exclude "weeping and gnashing of teeth" - I think we can all agree to that.

2. Let us say for the sake of clarity that the term "immortal soul" means or pertains to the idea of the soul that can survive both the first and second death in living conscious form - and that all mankind have "an immortal soul" -- wouldn't it be great - downright wonderful to have an actual Bible text that says "man has an immortal soul"???

Surely we can all agree that having such a text would be great.

 

[sculleywr]

Without going into dark ages mythology or paganism please define for us one created being in all the universe that the Bible says - has no physical description, no hands, no feet, no wings, no form ...

Since I am not Catholic - and neither are one or two others that are posting on this subject - we will need a 'sola scriptura' authority.

The angels do not have a permanent physical form. In fact, the very word used to describe them as beings, the Greek word Noetikos, literally refers to the intellect. Just because they appear temporarily to physical beings in a temporary physical form does not mean they have permanent physical form. In fact, their very existence defies the laws of a physical universe. With the size the wings would need to be to lift something that is a human size, the existence of six wings would make flight impossible, not to mention the physics preventing the flight itself because of the density of a human body.

The idea that angels have physical bodies that are permanent is absurd in and of itself.

 

[sculleywr]

Does the fact that some symbols are used in Revelation also mean there is no literal devil, no literal God, no literal heaven, no literal earth, no literal saints, no literal angels, no literal lake of fire in Rev 20??

Please be serious.

Literal and physical are not synonymous. Physical is not a necessary facet of existence. The Father is not physical, but would you dare to say He is not literal? I doubt you would.

The problem of making everything a physical reality is that you have to subject those that exist in that place to the limitations of physical existence. This means that everything in heaven must be bound by the laws of time. But God is not so bound.

 

[Endtime Survivors]

So I have seen lately that Hell is getting redefined to not really be a place of torment but just the fact that since God is everywhere than it will be awful for non Christians and to them that will be Hell.

Hi topcare. I think it will probably be the opposite in that hell is any place where God is not. Eating ice cream for eternity would be hell, if God is not there. This is because god is the creator of meaning and purpose; he created us with an in-built desire to crave these things. Even something like non-existence is hell because it means there is no more opportunity to experience life, not just in this physical world (which is temporary anyway) but in all the life which comes after it.

I think hell can be translated as "the grave" but there's also the possibility that it will be a literal lake of fire, where people either burn for eternity (which I suspect isn't the case) or they burn for some specified period of time and then burn out of existence completely (which I think is probably more likely). Either way, I think of the concept of "hell" as the "ultimate punishment". Whether it's burning in a lake of fire for eternity or snuggling with kittens for eternity or non-existence, it all amounts to the same thing without God.

 

[sculleywr]

Without going into dark ages mythology or paganism please define for us one created being in all the universe that the Bible says - has no physical description, no hands, no feet, no wings, no form ...

Since I am not Catholic - and neither are one or two others that are posting on this subject - we will need a 'sola scriptura' authority.

I will also state that until you create a sola scriptura authority for your canon, requiring people to follow the manmade tradition of SS when they do not hold to it is not consistent with actual reality. Do not hold us to a standard you can't live up to yourself.

 

[sculleywr]

Hi topcare. I think it will probably be the opposite in that hell is any place where God is not. Eating ice cream for eternity would be hell, if God is not there. This is because god is the creator of meaning and purpose; he created us with an in-built desire to crave these things. Even something like non-existence is hell because it means there is no more opportunity to experience life, not just in this physical world (which is temporary anyway) but in all the life which comes after it.

I think hell can be translated as "the grave" but there's also the possibility that it will be a literal lake of fire, where people either burn for eternity (which I suspect isn't the case) or they burn for some specified period of time and then burn out of existence completely (which I think is probably more likely). Either way, I think of the concept of "hell" as the "ultimate punishment". Whether it's burning in a lake of fire for eternity or snuggling with kittens for eternity or non-existence, it all amounts to the same thing without God.

How could there be a place that an omnipresent God isn't? wouldn't the definition of omnipresent exclude the possibility that there is a place without God?

 

[vinsight4u]

/

 

[Blade]

God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment. These angles never seen evil nor sin..and yet GOD still didnt spare them. What did Jesus tell the 12 when they came back happy shouting for JOY that even the demons are subject unto us. He told the.. a.. no be happy rejoice your names are written in heaven. WHY would their names be written in heaven? Believe JOHN 3:16.

Yet I read here some try to think or tap in to the mind of a GOD. Thats never going to happen. His ways are not ours nor His thoughts. He is not a man nor thinks like one. So to think how or why God did or will judge.. you cant. He is just. To think we have more compassion or mercy or grace. He never makes the choice.. YOU DO! Did you hear Jesus is lord? Did you acepct Him as your lord? Follow Him? Or did you not want to? Yet there are those that never heard they are blind.. if you were blind you would have no sin..you say you see your sin remains. In the end.. WE made the choice where we go not Him.

I asked Him when was 15.. 55 now. Asked how can you send all these people to hell. Came right back with "for God so loved the world" Then said "everyone gets a choice". Believe it or not to force some to live forever with Him would be hell. Dont think we can know His GODS heart or pain. He made MAN. So the pain to watch one make that choice.. I cannt even grasp.

Look how JESUS preached... think talk act like that.

 

[Colter]

the wicked will perish: … they vanish—like smoke they vanish away. (Psalm 37:20 ).

the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the treacherous will be rooted out of it. (Proverbs 2:22 ).

They are dead, they will not live; They are deceased, they will not rise. Therefore you have punished and destroyed them, And made all their memory to perish. (Isaiah 26:14, NKJV ).

And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2 )

They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction (2 Thessalonians 1:9 )

And these will go away into everlasting punishment (Matthew 25:46 )

 

[vinsight4u]

/