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I noticed you completely ignored the points I made in my last post.
But we finite beings have offended God! That is what the passage from Hebrews (and many others in Scripture) clearly communicates! And His righteous wrath rests upon every unrighteous and unrepentant sinner. (Jn. 3:36; Ro. 1:18) Your sin is ultimately against an infinite God. As such, it is infinitely serious -- as the punishment of Hell indicates.
Does our sin change God? Not in His fundamental character or nature, no. But God does act in response to our sin.
Is Hell a needless thing? No. It is the appropriate response of a holy God to our sinful conduct.
That treats your sin far too lightly. And it would make God both unjust and unholy. God forgave our sin through the atoning work of Christ on the cross. His forgiveness of our sin was constrained by His holy and just nature, it did not circumvent or ignore these aspects of who He is. Doing so would have made His forgiveness an evil and unjust thing.
Hell is the expression of God's wrath.
Revelation 14:10
10 he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
There seems to be a very direct link in this verse between God's wrath and the eternal torment of Hell.
Matthew 26:28 )
28 For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.
Hebrews 9:22
22 And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.
Romans 5:9
9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, shall we be saved from the wrath of God through him.
Do you think that the sins of the man lowered through the roof of the house were never atoned for? That is not what Scripture indicates:
Hebrews 7:26-27
26 For such a High Priest was fitting for us, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and has become higher than the heavens;
27 who does not need daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the people's, for this He did once for all when He offered up Himself.
But you misunderstand what God did through Christ. God in Christ voluntarily took upon Himself the penalty for our sin. It was not imposed or forced but accomplished willingly by Christ as a sacrificial act, not of justice, but of mercy and grace (though it satisfied God's justice, nonetheless). At any time Jesus could have called ten thousand angels to halt the course of events that led to his crucifixion, but of his own free will he laid down his life for you and I. (Jn. 10:18) It is the voluntary nature of Christ's sacrifice that prevents it from being an unjust act. Also, the justice that Christ satisfied was not external to God but emanating from Him. As such, God has a unique prerogative to satisfy His justice in the manner that He did. No human judge could properly do the same.
But the curse of sin is not humanity sharing in Gods judgment of Adam and Eve's sin but suffering the consequences of their sin. The victim of a drunk driver is not suffering punishment as he lays injured in the hospital. His being injured was not some judicial sentence being carried out, but merely the destructive consequence of the evil choice of the drunk driver.
Well, this is the problem with working from your finite and corrupted position to God's. What does the prophet Isaiah write?:
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.
That's not what the Bible says.
Selah.
If the answers in the Bible were so "clear," there wouldn't be 40,000 denominations and thousands of theological opinions, would there?
One more thing though.
Why are we supposed to love our fellow humans, while realizing many of them may end up being tortured for ever and ever?
So that we will scare them into faith?
See you later folks.
All this talk that God is willing to punish people for eternity is not quite true!
God does not punish anyone!
It is those that choose to go to hell that punish themselves!!
Except that Russian, Antiochian, and other dioceses in the Orthodox Church are not denominations. A denomination, under this definition, is defined by dogmatic division, which automatically excludes most of the divisions you're claiming exist under Orthodox and RCC groups. There are only really two Orthodox groups, and it has only recently been that the division has been determined to be superficial semantics. The healing is only just beginning on that schism, and it is 500 years older than the schism between Rome and the rest of Orthodoxy.40,000 denominations =/= 40,000 theological differences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_denominations
If you go to the Catholic section of that Wikipedia page, it lists a good 26 organisations which agree with each other completely on matters of doctrine. The difference is in their various traditions and the liturgy, which are about how they practise their faith and what the church service looks and feels like.
The Orthodox section lists a similar number, which also agree with each other on doctrine but have regional differences in their traditions and liturgies.
Just going to the Anglican, Reformed and Lutheran sections and you see them list many many churches, which in actual fact will have very similar if not identical doctrine. (Although there are a few churches that have now opened their doors to gay marriages so the unity isn't all there, but for the most part the churches listed will have the same doctrine.)
Often you'll have a denomination that simply isn't worldwide, they will be in one country even though they may very well completely agree with another denomination across the world in matters of doctrine.
Honestly I don't know what an exact estimate of the number would be, but the 40,000 is a gross exaggeration which includes regional and non-doctrinal differences. Imagine every country has their own country-specific denominations, and the number can soon get quite out of hand.
If you just look at the Wikipedia page's headings, it divides the groups into major subdivisions, this is where the major doctrinal differences actually come into play. In this case, it seems likely there are under 100 real divisions of Christianity, perhaps as small as 50, but if we want to be generous I wouldn't say over 500, maybe 1000 at a huge stretch with various small fringe groups. In terms of major groups which actually make up a significant proportion of Christians, it's less than 50.
As if anyone can love on command...Absolutely not! We love because it is commanded of us by God.
Does that mean Christians should live in doubt and fear of this purported eternal torture, until they die?No one knows who will be saved or not, that is God's purview not ours.
“The hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgement” (John, 5:28-9)There is no text in the Bible that says that people that go to hell - are given an eternal body.
If someone has such a text - they should post it.
If epistemological certainty is not guaranteed in Scripture, then why should we offer that certainty in our churches?As if anyone can love on command...
1 Corinthians 13 (obviously)
We need Christ in our lives to be able to Love.
Does that mean Christians should live in doubt and fear of this purported eternal torture, until they die?
That is what I was stating. It was a clarification, because many people read "real" to mean "physical".and ? hell is a spiritual place for spiritual beings
As if anyone can love on command...
1 Corinthians 13 (obviously)
We need Christ in our lives to be able to Love.
Does that mean Christians should live in doubt and fear of this purported eternal torture, until they die?
So tell me, then, where in the physical universe does heaven and hell exist?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.
Why would a non-physical being need a physical throne? We physical beings need it, but not God. There is a throne in my church that represents that God is present. Even the bishop doesn't sit there, as it is reserved for God Himself. But God doesn't physically form Himself into a human to sit on that throne.If kings on earth have thrones where they sit,
and a kingdom, then to me, it is totally logical
that the Creator of all things has a throne above
theirs where He rules and has subjects...servants.
angels and future people at least
among them
How can the lake of fire burning be nothing..or just burn up
the wicked people instantly someday?
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