1. Giving eternal existance to beings who are disfunctional failed beings who will benefit
nothing from punishment and the punishment is for the benefit of justice. How is justice met if one commits an act, stealing something, in time, to be punished by eternal pain and suffering?
I already addressed this "problem" in my blog article. First of all, punishment differs from discipline in that it is not remedial but purely punitive. The punishment of hell is not intended ultimately to benefit those who are punished. Hell is the expression of divine wrath (
Luke 3:7; John 3:36; Romans 1:18) and vengeance (
Hebrews 10:30-31) meted out upon the guilty. It is not meant to improve the wicked, to convince them of the wrong of their deeds, but only to cause the guilty to suffer for the evil they have done.
Secondly, the sin of every man is not merely temporal in its scope but is ultimately against God Himself, who is
infinite. The eternal nature of hell reflects the eternal nature of the One against whom we have all sinned again, and again, and again.
Gods punishment for face to face rebellion is death, wiping people out not torture.
Who said God tortures anyone? I haven't. Hell is a
torment to the wicked but not because God shows up with pincers, bone saws and a rack and mutilates and ravages those in hell. The great torment of hell is the
absence of God, His entire withdrawal from Gehenna. Hell is hellish also because the sinner is left alone with himself, with his wretched, wicked heart and mind to be endured forever. And he must do so in a place of eternal fire, and darkness, and rot. This is the "second death" the loss of all good things, total ruin,
not annihilation.
If you lose everything, your existance, what else is there to lose. Justice is suffering to the same degree one caused suffering in this world.
This is certainly a human idea of justice, but it's not God's view of justice. Hell is not about losing everything but about losing
everything good. God's justice is not centered on balancing out suffering, either. Our sin is ultimately against God but our sin doesn't cause Him to suffer. God is perfect and cannot be diminished in any way by what we may or may not do. And so, He punishes the wicked, not because their sin caused Him to suffer but because their sin is evil, terribly, terribly evil, and so deserves punishment.
2. Gods foundation is love, consistency, faithfulness, reality. Torment and eternal punishment is reserved for eternal beings as satan and the rebellious angels. Those who accept the mark of the beast are also given this doom.
God's "foundation" is not love but
holiness. We never read in Scripture of God's loving mountain, or loving throne, or loving angels. But we do read of His
holy mountain, and throne, and angels. His word is holy; His justice is holy; His Spirit is holy; His love, also, is holy. It is not "Love, love, love, Lord God Almighty" that the cherubim before God's throne sing eternally but "Holy, holy, holy." (
Revelations 4:8) We read in Scripture in only two places (in the same chapter, by the way) the statement "God is love," but we read
over and over again throughout the Bible that God is holy. (
Joshua 24:19; 1 Samuel 6:20; Psalms 99:5; Psalms 99:9; Isaiah 5:16; 1 Corinthians 3:17, etc.) Our modern Christian culture has distorted God, setting His love as pre-eminent over all of His other attributes, and as a result of this distortion, modern Christians are increasingly denying the doctrine of hell that is the consequence of God's holy perfection.
One has to get real. In our lives torment is having something small that gives pain that takes away our ability to sleep or function. People live with this kind of problem all the time which we have strong pain killers to resolve.
"Get real"? No, first of all, one must get
biblical. For it is in the Bible that we discover the Ground of All Reality.
Also, the word "torment" is not associated with "small pain."
tor·ment
noun
ˈtôrment/
- 1.
severe physical or mental suffering.
"their deaths have left both families in torment"
synonyms: agony, suffering, torture, pain, anguish, misery, distress, affliction, trauma, wretchedness;
The concept of hell plays to those who desire domination and the crushing of others.
??? Well, simply saying this is so doesn't make it so. Can you prove this assertion?
God rules and does not impose His rule on a rebellious household.
Those who die in their sin, unrepentant and in rebellion toward God, are not of God's household. They are God's
creatures, His creations, but they are not His
children. Scripture tells us that God treats His children after the manner of a Father but the unrepentant wicked after the manner of a wrathful Judge.
The emphasis is always on God and who He is, not on the rebellious and their rebellion, as if this is worthy of eternal torture and setting an example.
"The emphasis"? What emphasis, exactly? God's word says very plainly that the rebellion of the wicked toward their holy Maker is indeed worthy of eternal punishment in hell. Many in this thread have already posted the verses from Scripture that say so.
On a pure numbers game, more will be destroyed than be with the Lord. But they are but chaff, here one day, gone the next, not worthy of consideration once judgement has fallen.
This isn't what Scripture says:
2 Peter 3:9
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
1 Timothy 2:3-4
3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
John 3:16-17
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
It is in consideration of the past unrepentant wicked consigned to hell that a sinner today ought to carefully consider his own eternal destiny. The terrible eternal punishment of the wicked is one of the means by which God provokes the wicked to repentance.
