To those who believe in universal salvation, how long does hell last?

Ceallaigh

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Those who believe in universal salvation say that hell is not eternal, but rather age-long. But how long is age-long? The argument is that the Greek word aionios often translated as eternal, should be translated as age-long or age-during. Such as in Matthew 25:46.

But what I'm seeing in Matthew 25:46 is:

αἰώνιον (aiōnion) 166: agelong, eternal - from aión.
Definition: agelong, eternal
Usage: age-long, and therefore: practically eternal, unending; partaking of the character of that which lasts for an age, as contrasted with that which is brief and fleeting.

So going by that, while aionios may not mean eternal, it seems to be so close to eternal, it might as well be.

What do UR proponents have to say about that?
 

Jeshu

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i believe that the truth lasts forever!

We have our being in The Truth ALL The time!

So if we walk in untrue spirit, then in effect we give our live blood to that which ought not to be, and transgress God's command, being untrue as we ought never to be, on which rest His righteous punishment. Always!

This punishment will never stop!

For all truth was, is and will remain always remain true.

So how can we escape our bad truths?

Through Jesus! No other way. By being saved from life in bad spirit, for life in such spirituality is going to go down, as is we have seen already, and finding New Life in Christ's Spirit.

So both life in bad spirit and life in Holy Spirit is eternal, it is for us to escape life in bad spirit, by letting Christ kill us bad spirit and raise us back to life in His Spirit.

Peace.
 
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JIMINZ

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Those who believe in universal salvation say that hell is not eternal, but rather age-long. But how long is age-long? The argument is that the Greek word aionios often translated as eternal, should be translated as age-long or age-during. Such as in Matthew 25:46.

But what I'm seeing in Matthew 25:46 is:

αἰώνιον (aiōnion) 166: agelong, eternal - from aión.
Definition: agelong, eternal
Usage: age-long, and therefore: practically eternal, unending; partaking of the character of that which lasts for an age, as contrasted with that which is brief and fleeting.

So going by that, while aionios may not mean eternal, it seems to be so close to eternal, it might as well be.

What do UR proponents have to say about that?



Mat 25:46 And these shall go away into (everlasting G-166) punishment:
but the righteous into life (eternal G -166)

Following are the Definitions for both uses of the word G-166 Everlasting, Eternal

Strong's Concordance
Everlasting
G-166
αἰώνιος
aiōnios
ahee-o'-nee-os
From G165; perpetual (also used of past time, or past and future as well): - eternal, for ever, everlasting, world (began).

G-165
αἰών
aiōn
ahee-ohn'
From the same as G104; properly an age; by extension perpetuity (also past); by implication the world; specifically (Jewish) a Messianic period (present or future): - age, course, eternal, (for) ever (-more), [n-]ever, (beginning of the, while the) world (began, without end). Compare G5550.

G-104
ἀεί
aei
ah-eye'
From an obsolete primary noun (apparently meaning continued duration); “ever”; by qualification regularly; by implication earnestly: - always, ever.

G-5550
χρόνος
chronos
khron'-os
Of uncertain derivation; a space of time (in genitive case, and thus properly distinguished from G2540, which designates a fixed or special occasion; and from G165, which denotes a particular period) or interval; by extension an individual opportunity; by implication delay: - + years old, season, space, (X often-) time (-s), (a) while.

G-2540
καιρός
kairos
kahee-ros'
Of uncertain affinity; an occasion, that is, set or proper time: - X always, opportunity, (convenient, due) season, (due, short, while) time, a while. Compare G5550.


What I see which disturbs me the most about these definitions and the belief of those who would say that Hell is of a short duration and not for (EVER) is.

If what they say is in fact true, that would mean that, a persons time in Heaven with God is also of a short duration.

Therefore you cannot have people living with God in Heaven Forever, and the people in Hell not being there Forever also.


So then, when we compare the verse in Matt. with those found in the rest of the NT where the word EVERLASTING is used, we find that every one is G-166 except (1) which is G-126

Jud 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in (everlasting G-126) chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

G126
ἀΐ́διος
aidios
ah-id'-ee-os
From G104; everduring (forward and backward, or foward only): - eternal, everlasting.



We then find when we compare the verse in Matt. with those found in the rest of the NT where the word ETERNAL is used, every one is G-166
except (2) which are G-165


Eph 3:11 According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:

1Ti 1:17 Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

My understanding then in light of all the other verses with these two words would be, there assessment of the Definitions found in Matt. 25:46 are categorically wrong.

Mat 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
 
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Carl Emerson

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Just maybe Hell is eternal fire but the duration of ones stay is temporal ??

2 Peter 2:4
For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, held for judgment;
 
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Original Happy Camper

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This punishment will never stop!

So this is what a GOD of Love does to some of His created children in your view.

I am sorry that you worship a GOD that would do that.


You will probably not look at the information below but I am presenting it to you anyway. May the God of Love in the Bible be with you.

Genesis 2:7
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (not is or has but became a living soul, with the dirt and the breath of GOD, without the breath there is no soul)

Of the Bible's 1700 references to the soul and the spirit, neither the soul or spirit is ever declared to be immortal or eternal. In fact, 1 Timothy tells us that only God is immortal. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is full of false hope and negates the message of death. If humans continue to live—albeit in an altered state—then there is no need for the atoning death of Christ. Christ died to restore life to those who had forfeited it through sin.

A Biblical Understanding of Death | Immortality or Unconsciousness

Matthew 10:28: Destroying soul and body in hell? "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). Is Jesus teaching in this verse that the soul lives on after death and is immortal? Not at all. If you look at this scripture closely, you see that Jesus is actually saying that the soul can be destroyed. Jesus is here warning about the judgment of God. He says not to fear those who can destroy only the physical human body ( soma in the Greek), but fear Him (God) who is also able to destroy the soul ( psuche )—here denoting the person's physical being with its consciousness.

http://pdf.amazingdiscoveries.org/References/RB/279 PDFs/what-happens-after-death-slide-45-48.pdf
 
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Jeshu

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So this is what a GOD of Love does to some of His created children in your view.

I am sorry that you worship a GOD that would do that.


You will probably not look at the information below but I am presenting it to you anyway. May the God of Love in the Bible be with you.

Genesis 2:7
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (not is or has but became a living soul, with the dirt and the breath of GOD, without the breath there is no soul)

Of the Bible's 1700 references to the soul and the spirit, neither the soul or spirit is ever declared to be immortal or eternal. In fact, 1 Timothy tells us that only God is immortal. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul is full of false hope and negates the message of death. If humans continue to live—albeit in an altered state—then there is no need for the atoning death of Christ. Christ died to restore life to those who had forfeited it through sin.

A Biblical Understanding of Death | Immortality or Unconsciousness

Matthew 10:28: Destroying soul and body in hell? "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell" (Matthew 10:28). Is Jesus teaching in this verse that the soul lives on after death and is immortal? Not at all. If you look at this scripture closely, you see that Jesus is actually saying that the soul can be destroyed. Jesus is here warning about the judgment of God. He says not to fear those who can destroy only the physical human body ( soma in the Greek), but fear Him (God) who is also able to destroy the soul ( psuche )—here denoting the person's physical being with its consciousness.

http://pdf.amazingdiscoveries.org/References/RB/279 PDFs/what-happens-after-death-slide-45-48.pdf

You accusing me of what? i believe Jesus.
John 12:32
"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself."

Humanities Salvation

Psalm 86: 11-13 "Teach me your way, Lord, that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name. I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my heart; I will glorify your name forever. For great is your love toward me; you have delivered me from the depths, from the realm of the dead."

Every Christian believer knows that God is Spiritual. Not many times however do we realise that we have a spiritual side as well. We are a spirit existing in and through the life giving Spirit of God. God did not just make us living beings, as humans we all originally proceeded from Him and have been made in His image. Truthfully all people are His offspring, Acts 17:28, and have their lives in and from Him.

Gen 2:7 "Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being."

It is for this reason that The Word warns us about what kind of spirituality we walk with. For not only is God, The Truth, Spiritual, the devil, that liar, is spiritual too, and we can grow our life in his spirituality as well. Now life in The Spirit of God is Eternally Good and life giving, but the spirituality from the devil is mortal, debase, dysfunctional and deadening.

It should therefore come as no surprise that death and dying is being cut off from the life giving Spirit of God. Indeed our lives can only have true existence in Him, however spirituality from satan has been thrown out of Heaven and can only have existence for a life span in the hearts of people on this earth after which all wickedness is judged according to deed and thrown in the pool of fire.

Rev 20:11-15 "Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. The earth and the heavens fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire."

The truth is that our lives belong to God. He has given existence to us and invested much time and effort in us! Psalm 139. Not only that, He paid for us all, 1 John 2:2, and saved us from eternal hell.

1 Tim 4:9-10 "This is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. That is why we labor and strive, because we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all people, and especially of those who believe."

I believe that God harvests the human spirit from all the good spirituality that people have heeded. Spirituality that had originally been sown by His Spirit into peoples hearts. Loving and caring spirituality, for example, or times of compassion or kindness - all good comes from God and so He harvests each soul where all that is good in a persons life is taken from them! While bad is left behind to receive judgement.

Daniel 12:2 "“Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt."

We best understand that God is the truth and that an unbelieving person has grounded their existence on lies. Those lies have killed true being and raise false being up instead. The righteous die but no one takes notice! Isaiah mourns in Chapter 57. Indeed the righteous die to be spared from evil but the offspring of the wicked stands condemned!

Is 57:1-4 "The righteous perish, and no one takes it to heart; the devout are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter into peace; they find rest as they lie in death. “But you—come here, you children of a sorceress, you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes! Who are you mocking? At whom do you sneer and stick out your tongue? Are you not a brood of rebels, the offspring of liars?"

When God harvests our souls then He judges untrue being and brings true being back to life. So effectively, He saves even the soul of the unbelievers by judging the unbeliever who had life in lies and putting that spirituality to death. After which He raises the true person, which the lies of satan killed, from the dead, and gives that one charge over the spiritual being that God so saved through our Lord Jesus Christ.

In this way the unbeliever will be judged for his or her foolish beliefs and for killing the chosen within them! Nevertheless the true person,Clearly that had died within the spirit of that person because of the lies ruling, is resurrected and receives all the good things that the wicked had stolen from him or her. Untrue being punished and gone, true being restored and in charge. (Revelation 19:11-29 and Revelation 20:4-6)

In this way every person has been saved and will be resurrected to life by God's loving truth! As Scripture predicted would be the case multiple times. Psalms 22:27-31, Psalms 64:9, Isaiah 25:7-8, Daniel 7:14, Luke 3:6, John 12:31-32, Acts 3:25, Romans 5:18, 1 Timothy 2:4, 1 Timothy 4:9-10, Titus 2:11, Colossians 1:20 and 1 John 2:2. (All praise to Jesus for making everything right!)

So that The Word speaks true when it prophecies that;

Rom 14:10-12 "You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: “‘As surely as I live,’ says the Lord, ‘every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.’”

So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. However, in this way, all that has life in lies dies and is washed off, so nothing of the unbelieving person's reality is saved. Rather what the unbelieving person had put to death or had stolen within their own God given lives – because they believed/loved satan lies – is now raised to life and given kingship over such a soul again.

Rev 20 :1-6 I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshipped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who share in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.

While the place the unbeliever occupied in that person’s spirit is cut off from life and thrown in the pool of fire. Hebrews 4:12-13, Revelation 20:15.

As Paul teaches Timothy, the fact that God has saved humanity has special benefit to us believers. For now we can die to the spirituality of the lie throughout our lives and come to life in God's Spirit instead of satan's. To be born again means that your soul is being shaped by faith in Jesus, where in our bad life we turn to His good life for salvation.

Clearly the word of God teaches that Jesus is the saviour of all people, yet not one sinner in deed will escape judgement. All sinners will be judged for their ungodly lives and for murdering the chosen within them. Our God is a just God, who repays people in accordance with what they have done. The wicked raised in human hearts will not get away with perverting the hearts and minds of God's people forever, rather they shall be judged for murdering, imprisoning, enslaving and stealing God’s given good life and be cut off from eternal life.

Hebrews 4:12-13. "For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."

Isn't Judgement Day going to be a great Day? When all of us become true beings again, where untrue self is done away with and true being is restored! I can't wait for that great day of liberation – the liberation of God's children.
 
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Ceallaigh

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i believe that the truth lasts forever!

We have our being in The Truth ALL The time!

So if we walk in untrue spirit, then in effect we give our live blood to that which ought not to be, and transgress God's command, being untrue as we ought never to be, on which rest His righteous punishment. Always!

This punishment will never stop!

For all truth was, is and will remain always remain true.

So how can we escape our bad truths?

Through Jesus! No other way. By being saved from life in bad spirit, for life in such spirituality is going to go down, as is we have seen already, and finding New Life in Christ's Spirit.

So both life in bad spirit and life in Holy Spirit is eternal, it is for us to escape life in bad spirit, by letting Christ kill us bad spirit and raise us back to life in His Spirit.

Peace.

Thank you for sharing that. However I asked, what do UR proponents have to say about it.
 
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Original Happy Camper

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You accusing me of what?

Of worshiping a GOD that would do this

This punishment will never stop!


Mat 25:46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

Only the righteous inherit life eternal in the above scripture

The doctrine that the wicked dead are tormented forever is inconsistent with the character of God, who demonstrated infinite love for us in the sacrifice of His Son. Unfortunately, many people have misunderstood these concepts and reject God as a result.

The word aiónios, which means "everlasting," is used to describe the fate of the righteous as well as the wicked. The punishment of the wicked is everlasting death. The fire itself is not everlasting, but the final consequence of the fire—death—is everlasting.

This principle is clearly demonstrated in the Scriptures. In Malachi 4:1-3, speaking of that last day when the earth and all the wicked are burned up, God tells the prophet, "behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the LORD of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch... they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this."

Ashes and stubble indicate that the fire is out. The wicked do not burn eternally, but their destruction is final. Their pain and suffering is over, as is their life of sin and rebellion. God has mercy even on the wicked in that He does not allow them to suffer eternally.


Hell and Purgatory
 
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Original Happy Camper

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If folks want to argue about whether or not the view of universal reconciliation or eternal torment is correct, there's already a few active threads to do that in.


OK not trying to derail this tread, just trying to correct misconceptions of GOD
 
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Ceallaigh

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OK not trying to derail this tread, just trying to correct misconceptions of GOD

I completely understand and thanks. I think I'll start a similar thread asking for the annihilationist pov.
 
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Original Happy Camper

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Thank you for sharing. But that's not the universalist perspective I am asking for.

I think however I will also start a similar thread directed at annihilationists as well.

super then I will copy and past what I presented here in that thread.
 
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Ceallaigh

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super then I will copy and past what I presented here in that thread.

Thanks. Being on a phone is messing up my posts. I'm very curious about the difference between eternal and age-during or age-lasting is. Because one sounds about the same as the other going by translation.

From your perspective of course no such ambiguouity exists.
 
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Hmm

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So going by that, while aionios may not mean eternal, it seems to be so close to eternal, it might as well be

I'm not sure how any limited time duration can be "close to eternal" however long it is. There's a number in maths called Graham's Number which is the largest number ever used in a mathematical proof. It's so large that it is impossible to visualise it and no analogy can help you do this. As the Wikipedia article for Graham's number points out:

[Graham's number] is so large that the observable universe is far too small to contain an ordinary digital representation of Graham's number, assuming that each digit occupies one Planck volume, possibly the smallest measurable space. But even the number of digits in this digital representation of Graham's number would itself be a number so large that its digital representation cannot be represented in the observable universe. Nor even can the number of digits of that number—and so forth, for a number of times far exceeding the total number of Planck volumes in the observable universe.​

However, Graham's Number is no nearer to infinity than 1 is. I think it's the same with age: however long it may be it just doesn't approach eternity at all.
 
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SkyWriting

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This punishment will never stop!

An anguish people experience due to rejecting forgiveness is unending.
Until the second death in the lake of fire.
 
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Ceallaigh

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I'm not sure how any limited time duration can be "close to eternal" however long it is. There's a number in maths called Graham's Number which is the largest number ever used in a mathematical proof. It's so large that it is impossible to visualise it and no analogy can help you do this. As the Wikipedia article for Graham's number points out:

[Graham's number] is so large that the observable universe is far too small to contain an ordinary digital representation of Graham's number, assuming that each digit occupies one Planck volume, possibly the smallest measurable space. But even the number of digits in this digital representation of Graham's number would itself be a number so large that its digital representation cannot be represented in the observable universe. Nor even can the number of digits of that number—and so forth, for a number of times far exceeding the total number of Planck volumes in the observable universe.​

However, Graham's Number is no nearer to infinity than 1 is. I think it's the same with age: however long it may be it just doesn't approach eternity at all.

So do universalists think any length of punishment time, like a billion trillion years is okay, just as long as it's not eternal?
 
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Hmm

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So do universalists think any length of punishment time, like a billion trillion years is okay, just as long as it's not eternal?

I don't think universalists think punishment in the sense of torture or torment is okay for even a second. God's punishment is always loving and while there may be a punitive element the overall purpose will be corrective and educational, designed to bring the person back to God. I suppose in theory this could take a billion trillion years, but in practice it's hard to see how someone could resist God for that long once they finally get to know him.
 
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