Let's Talk About Hell

[Christos Anesti]

psychopaths and/or sociopaths feel none of those things

Even psychopaths wound their souls through their actions and bring on suffering regardless of if they consciously connect their suffering to those actions or not. I know I've meet people who do bad things and don't consciously feel bad about it but most them are far from joyful. They still reap what they sow even if they don't put two and two together. A killer might go home from a murder with a fix and smiling but the results take their toll on one psychological and spiritual health. It's not conducive to have a meaningful and satisfying life. They are slaves to their passions.

 

[brinny]

Even psychopaths wound their souls through their actions and bring on suffering regardless of if they consciously connect their suffering to those actions or not. I know I've meet people who do bad things and don't consciously feel bad about it but most them are far from joyful. They still reap what they sow even if they don't put two and two together. A killer might go home from a murder with a fix and smiling but the results take their toll on one psychological and spiritual health. It's not conducive to have a meaningful and satisfying life. They are slaves to their passions.

and they will come face to face with the living God. All those who love their sin and reject God's grace through Jesus the Christ's sacrifice, will face God's wrath on their own. To such, God basically says as you wish.

When they face the living, holy God, He will not be smiling.

 

[Christos Anesti]

When they face the living, holy God, He will not be smiling.

He will certainly offer His love just as He always did. God is love and he is unchangeing. He even gave himself up to crucifixion and prayed for the forgiveness of those who did it to him to show us His eternal and unvariable love. The sinners in hell torment themselves by rejecting His love. Thats why it is fearful to fall into the hands of the living God -his love is a burning fire that torments the wicked and brings joy to the Saints.

 

[brinny]

God's wrath is what it is. There is no smile associated with it.

God laughs at the wicked. It is written.

He is holy.

Just as He closed the door of the ark with HIs very own hand, He closes the door of grace at His own appointed time. His wrath will then be poured out. It is His fury.

Those who reject His Son's sacrifice are under His wrath. THat is why it is written that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.

 

[JamesAH]

He will certainly offer His love just as He always did

So let me get this straight a wicked person with no love of God in their hearts stands before Him and you're telling me He's going to offer His love is that what you're saying?

 

[SummaScriptura]

He will certainly offer His love just as He always did. God is love and he is unchangeing. He even gave himself up to crucifixion and prayed for the forgiveness of those who did it to him to show us His eternal and unvariable love. The sinners in hell torment themselves by rejecting His love. Thats why it is fearful to fall into the hands of the living God -his love is a burning fire that torments the wicked and brings joy to the Saints.

Interesting way to look at it. I agree and disagree, but only because there is wrath, it is real.

But I do believe both heaven and hell are characterized by fire. In one place welcomed in the other not.

 

[Christos Anesti]

but only because there is wrath, it is real.

I believe that His wrath only exists from our perspective. Those who rejected him experience his love as a burning fire and that is called metaphorically "His wrath". God doesn't literally suffer from passions or have changing emotions though. He is love immutable and unchangeable.

A book I was reading about St Ephrem really opened my eyes on how to understand certain things said about God in the Bible:

"What God has allowed to be said of himself in the Bible is, for Ephrem, a primary source for any human knowledge of God. The 'names' of God and the various types and symbols in Scripture constitute meeting points between God and humanity: God in his divine condescension has lowered Himself to the level of human understanding. From the human side, if advantage is to be taken of this opportunity, offered by God, of a way towards knowledge of Himself, two things are essential,... in the first place we must not make the ungrateful mistake of taking the names and metaphors used by God in Scripture literaly...

Ephrem in his role as theologian, is naturally primarily interesting in penetrating to the interior meaning of Scripture, a realm explored by the eye of discernment (purshana) and this inner eye of faith. Indeed he stresses that to stop at Scriptures outward statements about God and to take them literally is both dangerous- in that it will lead to misconceptions about Gods nature- and at the same time a sign of utter ingratitude for, and misunderstanding of Gods condescension in allowing himself to be spoken of in human language at all.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian states:

If someone concentrates his attention
solely on the metaphors used of God's majesty,
he abuses and misrepresents that majesty
by means of those metaphors
with which God has clothed Himself for humanities
own benefit,
and he is ungrateful to that Grace
which has bent down its stature to the level of human
childishness;
even though God has nothing in common with it.
He clothed Himself in the likeness of humanity
in order to bring humanity to the likeness of Himself.
​

-St Ephrem : Paradise 11:6

 

[Christos Anesti]

St Ephrem is my other favorite Syriac Saint.

 

[SummaScriptura]

I believe that His wrath only exists from our perspective. Those who rejected him experience his love as a burning fire and that is called metaphorically "His wrath". God doesn't literally suffer from passions or have changing emotions though. He is love immutable and unchangeable.

A book I was reading about St Ephrem really opened my eyes on how to understand certain things said about God in the Bible:

"What God has allowed to be said of himself in the Bible is, for Ephrem, a primary source for any human knowledge of God. The 'names' of God and the various types and symbols in Scripture constitute meeting points between God and humanity: God in his divine condescension has lowered Himself to the level of human understanding. From the human side, if advantage is to be taken of this opportunity, offered by God, of a way towards knowledge of Himself, two things are essential,... in the first place we must not make the ungrateful mistake of taking the names and metaphors used by God in Scripture literaly...

Ephrem in his role as theologian, is naturally primarily interesting in penetrating to the interior meaning of Scripture, a realm explored by the eye of discernment (purshana) and this inner eye of faith. Indeed he stresses that to stop at Scriptures outward statements about God and to take them literally is both dangerous- in that it will lead to misconceptions about Gods nature- and at the same time a sign of utter ingratitude for, and misunderstanding of Gods condescension in allowing himself to be spoken of in human language at all.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian states:

If someone concentrates his attention
solely on the metaphors used of God's majesty,
he abuses and misrepresents that majesty
by means of those metaphors
with which God has clothed Himself for humanities
own benefit,
and he is ungrateful to that Grace
which has bent down its stature to the level of human
childishness;
even though God has nothing in common with it.
He clothed Himself in the likeness of humanity
in order to bring humanity to the likeness of Himself.
​

-St Ephrem : Paradise 11:6

I rejected the hidden decrees of Calvin, but not in order to embrace the secret meaning of Scripture from another source. I cannot accept that God's word is tainted by corruptions due to God's condescension to our humanity.

 

[Christos Anesti]

I cannot accept that God's word is tainted by corruptions due to God's condescension to our humanity.

I don't see that as St Ephrems point at all. He loved the Scriptures and certainly didn't teach that they suffered from corruptions. The condescensions are not taints or corruptions but are exactly what God wanted to be in the text.

 

[SummaScriptura]

I don't see that as St Ephrems point at all. He loved the Scriptures and certainly didn't teach that they suffered from corruptions. The condescensions are not taints or corruptions but are exactly what God wanted to be in the text.

In that case it is right to meet the Lord on His terms and at His word, condescended with us.

 

[Mathetes the kerux]

Except that the idea the books of the DSS belong to the Essenes is an idea that dies hard, but has been prooved to be false by evidence.

Qumran was not an Essene scribal settlement:
1. No scriptorium, nor the implements of a scriptorium capable of produicing the DSS has been found in Qumran.
2. The graves of women are found in those at Qumran. Not what one might find at an outpost of ascetics.
3. The scrolls have been demonstrated to be the products of many hands produced over a period of centuries. Some of the scrolls evidence a lack of scribal craft. An outpost of scribes would show more recurrent examples of individuals dedicated to the scribal craft, and less variety of hands.

The latest scholarship, coming after 1989, when the DSS were wrested from the monopolistic control of a handfull of researchers, has tended toward the conclusion the DSS represent a gathering of scrolls with multiple provenance, perhaps from across Jerusalem and deposited in the caves in 68 AD.

So the DSS demonstrate what Judaism was like in 1st century Israel, not only the ideas of one sect. Belief in an eternally burning hell was commonplace.

The idea that the scrolls were the product of a sect of Essenes was put forward and defended for nearly 40 years by two Dominican priests, Father Roland de Raud and Father Josef T. Milik. It now seems these men projected European monastic forms into a thoroughly Jewish 1st century situation.

Interesting SS, thnx.

Could I have some links for this? Good to have as info and citation.

It does occur to me . . . perhaps the assumption of what an Essene is, is wrong then, and not that the place was not Essene "ic" . . . I dont see the same sort of writing like "sons of light" (if I remember the title correctly) in any other Judaic vein of thought.

 

[Mathetes the kerux]

I believe that His wrath only exists from our perspective. Those who rejected him experience his love as a burning fire and that is called metaphorically "His wrath". God doesn't literally suffer from passions or have changing emotions though. He is love immutable and unchangeable.

A book I was reading about St Ephrem really opened my eyes on how to understand certain things said about God in the Bible:

"What God has allowed to be said of himself in the Bible is, for Ephrem, a primary source for any human knowledge of God. The 'names' of God and the various types and symbols in Scripture constitute meeting points between God and humanity: God in his divine condescension has lowered Himself to the level of human understanding. From the human side, if advantage is to be taken of this opportunity, offered by God, of a way towards knowledge of Himself, two things are essential,... in the first place we must not make the ungrateful mistake of taking the names and metaphors used by God in Scripture literaly...

Ephrem in his role as theologian, is naturally primarily interesting in penetrating to the interior meaning of Scripture, a realm explored by the eye of discernment (purshana) and this inner eye of faith. Indeed he stresses that to stop at Scriptures outward statements about God and to take them literally is both dangerous- in that it will lead to misconceptions about Gods nature- and at the same time a sign of utter ingratitude for, and misunderstanding of Gods condescension in allowing himself to be spoken of in human language at all.

Saint Ephrem the Syrian states:

If someone concentrates his attention
solely on the metaphors used of God's majesty,
he abuses and misrepresents that majesty
by means of those metaphors
with which God has clothed Himself for humanities
own benefit,
and he is ungrateful to that Grace
which has bent down its stature to the level of human
childishness;
even though God has nothing in common with it.
He clothed Himself in the likeness of humanity
in order to bring humanity to the likeness of Himself.
​

-St Ephrem : Paradise 11:6

I believe that His wrath only exists from our perspective.

U kno why I cant agree with this? If His wrath is only from our perspective, the Jesus cannot remove it FROM THE FATHER . . . Jesus does not remove anything then, for the POINT of ilasterion (propitiation the first step in atonement) is the removal of wrath of a deity. Atonement makes no sense if the wrath is not an objective fact from the Father for we partake in NOTHING in the act of the appeasement of God . . . we are no where in view in that part of atonement . . . that is STRICTLY the Son and the Father . . . and it is called wrath at that point.

 

[Christos Anesti]

In that case it is right to meet the Lord on His terms and at His word, condescended with us.

I think it's important to look to what the words are actually pointing too. Not everything is meant to be understood in a literal fashion.

There were people known as the anthropomorphites for example who claimed that God the Father had a literal body and hands because the Bible used such metaphors regarding him. In that way they were similar to the LDS. I think most Christians view such statements in the Bible regarding Gods body and hands as being metaphorical or symbolic.

 

[Christos Anesti]

If His wrath is only from our perspective, the Jesus cannot remove it FROM THE FATHER

By His death and resurection Christ defeated death and lifted man back up to the Father. The atonment wasn't about appeasing an emotion (anger) in God the Father.

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

I don't believe in the fire torment pit of hell. I believe that "hell" is the darkness outside of heaven where the evil souls are because they can't get into heaven, and because they are evil they torment eachother. But, not a pit of fire. I just don't believe that God would create such a place and then threaten to send people there to roast forever. O course, I could be wrong, it's just my own opinion.

What do you think?

Comparing Isa 66:22-24 with Rev 20:14-21:1 I'd say He has created such a place.

 

[Mathetes the kerux]

By His death and resurection Christ defeated death and lifted man back up to the Father. The atonment wasn't about appeasing an emotion (anger) in God the Father.

Uh, ur Eastern Orthodox, right? U dont kno ur Greek? That is what the word propitiation MEANS, and it is one of the key concepts in atonement. Look up ilasterion . . . sorry brother, but that IS what the FIRST step in the atonement is. Christ sates the wrath of the Father, He drinks the whole cup, that is what the Garden of Gethsemane was all about . . . you think Jesus merely was swayed because of the prospect of death? No, He, who had eternal joy with His Father would shortly undergo something that He had never had before . . . the DISPLEASURE IN WRATH OF HIS FATHER, because THIS IS WHAT WE DESERVE so He PROPITIATES the Father IN OUR PLACE.

 

[SummaScriptura]

Interesting SS, thnx.

Could I have some links for this? Good to have as info and citation.

It does occur to me . . . perhaps the assumption of what an Essene is, is wrong then, and not that the place was not Essene "ic" . . . I dont see the same sort of writing like "sons of light" (if I remember the title correctly) in any other Judaic vein of thought.

I am a member of this Yahoo Group:

Dead Sea Scrolls

There are folks from all fields and levels of expertise in this field. Many informative posts can be found in the archives on these subjects.

Also, I just Googled up information and its out there on all of this.

Here's just an introduction:

Wikipedia DSS

Scroll down to:

Origin of the Scrolls

There you will find a number of theories. Including this one:

Jerusalem Origin Theory

Some scholars have argued that the scrolls were the product of Jews living in Jerusalem, who hid the scrolls in the caves near Qumran while fleeing from the Romans during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Karl Heinrich Rengstorf first proposed that the Dead Sea Scrolls originated at the library of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Later, Norman Golb suggested that the scrolls were the product of multiple libraries in Jerusalem, and not necessarily the Jerusalem Temple library. Proponents of the Jerusalem Origin theory point to the diversity of thought and handwriting among the scrolls as evidence against a Qumran origin of the scrolls. Several archaeologists have also accepted an origin of the scrolls other than Qumran, including Yizhar Hirschfeld and most recently Yizhak Magen and Yuval Peleg, who all understand the remains of Qumran to be those of a Hasmonean fort that was reused during later periods.

A far more reasonable explanation is the scrolls were gathered and hidden sround 68 AD between the sieges of Vespasian and Titus. There were 34 months during which this deposit could have been made during the window of opportunity afforded by Israel being controlled by the Jews.

The point of all this is, the belief in an eternal state of hell was in common circulation among the Jews at the time of Christ. Christ's teaching affirmed that belief.

 

[Christos Anesti]

U dont kno ur Greek? That is what the word propitiation MEANS

Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism have a substantively different soteriology; this is sometimes cited as the core difference between Eastern and Western Christianity. Salvation is not seen as legal release, but transformation of the human nature itself in the Son taking on human nature. In contrast to other forms of Christianity, the Orthodox tend to use the word "expiation" with regard to what is accomplished in the sacrificial act. In Orthodox theology, expiation is an act of offering that seeks to change the one making the offering. The Greek word that is translated both into propitiation and expiation is "hilasmos" which means "to make acceptable and enable one to draw close to God". Thus the Orthodox emphasis would be that Christ died, not to appease an angry and vindictive Father, or to avert the wrath of God, but to change people so that they may become more like God (see Theosis).[7]

 

[Mathetes the kerux]

Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism have a substantively different soteriology; this is sometimes cited as the core difference between Eastern and Western Christianity. Salvation is not seen as legal release, but transformation of the human nature itself in the Son taking on human nature. In contrast to other forms of Christianity, the Orthodox tend to use the word "expiation" with regard to what is accomplished in the sacrificial act. In Orthodox theology, expiation is an act of offering that seeks to change the one making the offering. The Greek word that is translated both into propitiation and expiation is "hilasmos" which means "to make acceptable and enable one to draw close to God". Thus the Orthodox emphasis would be that Christ died, not to appease an angry and vindictive Father, or to avert the wrath of God, but to change people so that they may become more like God (see Theosis).[7]

Unfortunately tho, propitiation (ilasterion) is the word that the biblical authors used ALSO:


Romans 3:25
25ον προεθετο ο θεος ιλαστηριον δια πιστεως εν τω αυτου αιματι εις ενδειξιν της δικαιοσυνης αυτου δια την παρεσιν των προγεγονοτων αμαρτηματων

and if means the appeasement of the wrath of deity. So, my point still stands. Wrath is an objective FACT apart from the human that Christ sates from the Father. So your contention of wrath only being a human perspective still fails.

but transformation of the human nature itself in the Son taking on human nature

I am aware of the beginning of theosis . . . but what I am refering to is prior even to this. The FIRST thing that the Son does, is appease the righteous and just wrath of the Father and making possible the next steps in theosis, or sanctification or whatever term one wants to attriburte to the process.

tend to use the word "expiation" with regard to what is accomplished in the sacrificial act.

Problem is tho that both concepts are in the Bible, u cannot exclude one for the other . . . it is BOTH AND . . . ergo, wrath being a merely human perspecitve issue is wrong because both expiation and propitiation are considered as part and parcel of the atonement.

One is the concept of the atonement that effects God and one is the concept in the atonement that effects man. God is propitiated, man is expiated. But you cannot divorce the two, or even emphasize one over the other.

Fact remains, the concept of the removal of wrath is USED EXPLICITLY by Paul . . . and is therefore an authoritative part of atonement. Not to mention that it is thoroughly attested to by the OT sacrificial system . . . and expiation is not . . . hence the blood of bulls and goats does not remove sin, expiation is what makes the Blood of Christ superior, but the OT shadow still carries the substance of the propitiation AS WELL . . . AND expiation is a clear concept WITHIN propitiation.