The Eternality of Hell

[trackstacks]

Why would God create a universe where he is so easily offended and sets up a system where he gets to gleefully toss almost everybody in hell. Its almost as if he wants us to fail so he will have someone to hurt, OR he loves us so much and his mercy is so much greater and love does win, I'm opting for the 2nd.
I'm terrified of the first God, if almost everyone is thrown into hell, then satan has won a victory that God was unwilling or unable to counteract.
If God gets what he wants, and he will all to be saved....

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Why would God create a universe where he is so easily offended and sets up a system where he gets to gleefully toss almost everybody in hell.

Well,

it is written that He takes no pleasure even in the death of the wicked,
but
it is written
that even after one-third of mankind on earth is wiped out,
the remainder REFUSE TO BE SAVED !!!!!!!!

So it is with sorrow that the CREATOR tosses them into the lake of fire, just as HIS WORD SAYS,
NOT WITH GLEE .....

 

[Anna Scott]

. . . .It is very emotional and sympathetic of you to prefer annihilation rather than to know the wicked suffer the just punishment of their sin in hell, but such a preference reveals how low a view of God's holiness and how weak an understanding of the depravity of your own sin you possess. . . .

Are your seriously claiming to know my thoughts, my view of God's Holiness, my understanding of the the depravity of my own sins, in essence my relationship with the Holy Trinity? You are not the judge of my soul.

But if God was a monster? Would you serve Him then just because He was God? If God was petty, and capricious, and evil would you serve Him? Probably not. We serve God because He is a good God who we can trust to be merciful, and gracious, and kind to us.

Actually, someone whom I love deeply, said that he could not serve a God who would cast all, who didn't follow him, into eternal torment. So, you are right, if we find God to be a "monster," we probably won't serve Him.

I can understand one who is searching posing such questions and arriving at such a conclusion.

However, it is really quite shocking to hear this from a Christian. You are suggesting that we look at God's actions and decide whether or not he is "petty, and capricious, and evil" or a "monster." If we find that He is any of these things, you are saying we probably would not serve Him.

By what standard are we to judge God's actions to see if He is an evil monster? Do we judge Him based on what we, as individuals, believe to be evil? So, what would qualify in the definition of a monster?

Genocide?
Killing everything that breathes, when conquering a city?
Thrusting swords through infants?
Killing children?
Enslaving captives?
Beheadings? Dismembering bodies?
Setting apart both animals and people for destruction/execution?
Striking terror far and wide, because of the above actions?

These very things are happening now, and we call it evil. It's in the news all the time.

Does that mean, as you said, we probably wouldn't follow a God who did these things? Why, then, are you following God?

I think your comments take us, as Christians, into dangerous territory. We have no right to judge man, and certainly no right to judge God.

I'm trying to understand the meaning of Holy Scripture, and specifically in this thread, the meaning of Hell and the fate of our souls.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Hell, actually the Lake of Fire, is eternal punishment; conscious punishment.
The human nature (1Co 2:14) has a hard time accepting the concept at times, especially when they do not accept God's Word on the matter.
Why have people suffer forever? Why not just annihilate them after they are cast into The Lake of Fire? Someone once gave this answer:
"Infraction against infinite righteousness deserves infinite punishment."
Sounds like a good answer. Of course people can still reject it using human reasoning.
What do you think?

"Infraction against infinite righteousness deserves infinite punishment" is a statement without an argument.

The appropriate response is why?

-CryptoLutheran

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

I'm trying to understand the meaning of Holy Scripture, and specifically in this thread, the meaning of Hell and the fate of our souls.

Specifically in this thread is not likely to be the place to learn the truth.
Everything is so mixed up here, for everyone who sees what goes on here, practically.
Those who might think it is not all mixed up are, well, I don't know - I don't know any member nor visitor who thinks things here are all good and hunky-dorey...

i.e. to understand the meaning of Holy Scripture, and
the meaning of hell and the fate of our souls,
read it. (read Scripture; it is simple to read it directly)
Ask God for His Understanding, Wisdom, and Courage to accept it.
Then
wait on God for :
" Then opened HE their understanding, that they might understand the scriptures,"
as
the testimony all through Scripture, the NT especially, is that if HE does not
grant understanding from heaven,
then the veil remains;
and only HE can remove it.

in short, do not trust man's ideas, doctrines, or messages; test everything and accept only when it is in line with all Scripture and God's Spirit confirms likewise.

Which of course goes back to the standard, God's Word, the source -
requiring in most cases reading the BIBLE to see for one's self,
praying / talking with the Father,
abiding in the Son,
and the Word,
and the Word abiding in you. (always as YHWH says in His Word).

It is simple, much much simpler than this thread or forum is.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Right you are, anything is possible with God... Just don't see as people getting off that easy.. you know, ending every part of their existence. It may seem the best option for them.

Also, when you think of loved ones who are lost. It would be much easier to know that they are not suffering, just don't exist, than suffering for ever with knowledge of their plight.

If they're dead they don't know what they're missing anyway. My brother and sister both passed recently. I feel bad for myself, missing them, more than I do for them Their lives weren't all that great toward the end. Death was especially welcomed for my sister who spent her last years in great pain.

 

[Foxfyre]

In light of the fact that every single one of us ought to go to hell, that some of us will not is very good news!

Since the punishment of God is perfect and just, why would it be "the worst news you've ever heard" to see it exercised? Is perfect justice not an excellent thing? I think so.

Christ's atonement opens the way into God's kingdom for all who would take it. It is a testament to the rebelliousness and depravity of Man - not the weakness of Christ's victory over death - that, being offered an escape from the penalty of sin, people spurn the offer in favor of Self-serving wickedness.

Matthew 7:13-14
13 "Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it.
14 Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.



It is very emotional and sympathetic of you to prefer annihilation rather than to know the wicked suffer the just punishment of their sin in hell, but such a preference reveals how low a view of God's holiness and how weak an understanding of the depravity of your own sin you possess.

Why should hell express God's compassion? God expressed His enormous compassion, love and mercy to us in the Atonement. But having rejected God's gracious gift of salvation in Christ, the unrepentant sinner faces only the terrible, just wrath of God.

John 3:36
36 He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."



As C.S. Lewis pointed out, God makes us "unblushing promises" by which He motivates us to a relationship with Him. He offers us an abundant life with Him; He offers us heavenly reward for our obedience and service to Him; He offers us blessings and safety, joy and peace. Why? Because He thinks we are narcissists? No. I think He motivates us with the promise of good things because that is how He made us to be motivated. This was true even of Christ as he faced the horrendous prospect of the cross. It was "for the joy that was set before him" that he endured the cross. (He. 12:2) He was motivated into the terrible sacrifice of Calvary by the joy it would produce. Was Christ, then, just a self-serving narcissist? Absolutely not. And neither are those who are motivated by the unblushing promises of God to them.



But if God was a monster? Would you serve Him then just because He was God? If God was petty, and capricious, and evil would you serve Him? Probably not. We serve God because He is a good God who we can trust to be merciful, and gracious, and kind to us.

Selah.

The Apostle Paul struggled with the concept of what God expects of us. He accepted that the death and resurrection of the Christ paid the price of our sin and assured us of eternal life even though we have all fallen short. But as a Pharisaic Jew he sometimes couldn't resist rescuing and defending the Law as the path of righteousness. And even as the gospel assures of of salvation and eternal life even though we are not worthy, the Book of James clearly reminds us that faith without works is dead.

I sometimes joke that one of the most terrible sinking feelings in the world would be to be standing behind Mother Teresa in line at the pearly gates and hear her being told: "Sorry Mother, you just didn't do enough to get in."

I think we all probably struggle at times with the yin and yang of faith vs works and what we think God expects of us.

I listened once to a young man who said that if you aren't baptized "in the NAME OF JESUS" you aren't saved. In other words if you are baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, you are damned to hell.

And I just sigh. I can't imagine Jesus, who suffered and died on the cross as penance for our sins, would then make up a new kind of legalism that his sacrifice released us from.

And in my own faith, insisting that hell must be this or must be that, or presuming to know who will and will not be condemned to go there, is just another form of legalism. The Bible never refers to hell as 'eternal life' but only the life beyond where we will meet Jesus face to face.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

Learning the TRUTH certainly is beyond man's abililty, as noted in posts here.

People everyone thinks is going to make it, don't,
(including themselves), as written ,
and
people who don't think anything of themselves,
make it - are welcomed by JESUS HIMSELF....

It may often not the belief of heaven or of hell, (most don't have a clue anyway),
or this or that,
but
the life that is tested, judged, by the JUDGE, on JUDGMENT DAY,
the whole life,
right or wrong,
may not be clear at all until JUDGMENT DAY,
and then if wrong, is way too late,
and if right, WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE ! ETERNAL LIFE !

 

[aiki]

Are your seriously claiming to know my thoughts, my view of God's Holiness, my understanding of the the depravity of my own sins, in essence my relationship with the Holy Trinity? You are not the judge of my soul.

Judging? No. But anyone who tells me the wickedness of humanity does not deserve the punishment of eternal hell reveals that they have a weak view of sin and a correspondingly low view of God's holiness. It is not indicative of some monstrous bent on God's part that He punishes our sin with such severity; He is not over-reacting to our sin. And it is not that we are misunderstanding the plain declaration of Scripture concerning God's wrathful punishment of the unrepentant wicked. When we look at the eternal torment of hell and say, "It is too much! It is too cruel!" We reveal we don't - and perhaps never fully can - properly see our sin as our perfectly holy and just God does. But this is a failing on our part, not His. Hell is not God over-reacting to our sin. Our horror at such punishment is our under-reaction to the heinousness of our sin.

Actually, someone whom I love deeply, said that he could not serve a God who would cast all, who didn't follow him, into eternal torment. So, you are right, if we find God to be a "monster," we probably won't serve Him.

And it sounds, in the manner in which your dear friend has put it, that he has the moral high ground in condemning a God who would judge our sin so harshly. But, again, this is not really the case. Sinners are the least able to properly assess their own sin. They are notoriously susceptible to downplaying the wickedness in which they daily indulge and do not even often recognize as sin.

I can understand one who is searching posing such questions and arriving at such a conclusion.

Sure. So can I.

However, it is really quite shocking to hear this from a Christian. You are suggesting that we look at God's actions and decide whether or not he is "petty, and capricious, and evil" or a "monster."

I have heard quite a number of professing "Christians" say these very things about God if eternal, conscious torment is real. But, then, they are quick to say such a God is not revealed in the Bible because the hell we think the Bible describes is just figurative, and/or mythological, and/or is actually annihilation, not torment.

In any case, I am not suggesting you assess God and determine whether or not He is a monster. I am speaking only hypothetically when I asked you what you would do if God were evil. If you believe we should only ever serve God simply and solely because He is God, what would you do if our good God wasn't good, but cruel and wicked? Would you serve Him then just because He is God? I doubt it. But this suggests to me that the motive for our obedience to God is not just "because He is God," but is inextricably bound to His goodness and love out of which we expect loving and good things to flow to us.

I think your comments take us, as Christians, into dangerous territory. We have no right to judge man, and certainly no right to judge God.

Actually, we are commanded in Scripture to "judge righteous judgment." Christ said this. (Jn. 7:24) Do we have the right, though, to condemn someone to hell? No. Absolutely not. That is solely God's domain. But we are to judge the conduct and speech of those around us and reject what is evil and false and embrace what is good and true.

We have no right to judge God. I agree. But Christians do this constantly when it comes to God's condemnation and punishment of the wicked. Working from their sin-steeped, finite frame of reference, they presume to assess the rightness of God's judgment of their sin. But how do creatures born into sin, who live in it every day of their lives, and who do not even recognize much of their sin as sin ever expect to rightly judge God's response to their wickedness? They simply - and obviously - cannot! But this is what is at the heart of this debate over the reality and justness of the eternal, conscious torment of the wicked in hell.

Selah.

 

[JacksBratt]

Why would God create a universe where he is so easily offended and sets up a system where he gets to gleefully toss almost everybody in hell. Its almost as if he wants us to fail so he will have someone to hurt, OR he loves us so much and his mercy is so much greater and love does win, I'm opting for the 2nd.
I'm terrified of the first God, if almost everyone is thrown into hell, then satan has won a victory that God was unwilling or unable to counteract.
If God gets what he wants, and he will all to be saved....

Not to sure where you get the "gleefully" and the "wants" us to fail.

Firstly, He has made it extremely simple to be saved by giving and extremely difficult sacrifice. If you don't believe in Him, why should you exist in a place you do not believe in. If you believe in Him and don't accept His supreme sacrifice and simple gift, why should you partake of that which you shunned... Pretty simple to me.

Secondly, if He wanted to hurt us, He wouldn't of gave the ultimate sacrifice for us.

It comes down to the two things that keeps us from salvation...................PRIDE and Arrogance.

 

[aiki]

I sometimes joke that one of the most terrible sinking feelings in the world would be to be standing behind Mother Teresa in line at the pearly gates and hear her being told: "Sorry Mother, you just didn't do enough to get in."

Yes, it would be a terrible thing to hear - especially in light of the fact that the Bible tells us our acceptance by God and our entrance into His kingdom has nothing whatever to do with our good works - or lack thereof. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. So, then, I never fear that I haven't done as much as Mother Theresa. Neither she nor I can ever deserve, can ever earn, our way into God's kingdom.

Titus 3:5-7
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

I listened once to a young man who said that if you aren't baptized "in the NAME OF JESUS" you aren't saved. In other words if you are baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, you are damned to hell.

And I just sigh. I can't imagine Jesus, who suffered and died on the cross as penance for our sins, would then make up a new kind of legalism that his sacrifice released us from.

Well, this is why it is important to know God's word thoroughly. It helps steer us from bondage to these silly rules to the legitimate ones God sets out for us in His word that ought to shape our living and doctrine. Jesus's sacrifice freed us from the penalty of death the law imposes upon us, but it did not exempt us from fulfilling the righteousness of the law.

Romans 8:2-4
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

And in my own faith, insisting that hell must be this or must be that, or presuming to know who will and will not be condemned to go there, is just another form of legalism.

That depends, it seems to me, upon how closely one adheres to what Scripture actually reveals of God's punishment of the wicked.

Selah.

 

[aiki]

Specifically in this thread is not likely to be the place to learn the truth.

Do you not think the things you share are truthful? Can a reader of this thread not find truth in your words? I think they can find truth in mine. Why else would I post? The presence of falsehoods in other posts seems to me all the more reason to share what is true. Certainly, giving up the field of battle against falsehood is not the way to promote the truth on this site.

Selah.

 

[aiki]

Why would God create a universe where he is so easily offended and sets up a system where he gets to gleefully toss almost everybody in hell.

God is easily offended if He judges and punishes our sin? Why should a perfectly holy, and pure, and righteous God have to put up in any measure with your sin? The fact, is, He doesn't. You are in His universe. He says what goes, not you. And yet, when you disobey Him over and over again, He doesn't just toss you into hell as you deserve. No, instead, He does all He can to make a way for you to be reconciled to Himself. But His patience and mercy must accommodate his holiness and justice and so, at some point, the debt of your sin comes due. None of this suggests to me God is "easily offended." What it does suggest to me is that you think God should be as comfortable with, and as flexible about, your sin as you are. The real problem, then, isn't that God is too easily offended by our sin but that you aren't offended by it enough!

and sets up a system where he gets to gleefully toss almost everybody in hell.

Gleefully? Come on. This is a Strawman.

Ezekiel 33:11
11 Say to them: 'As I live,' says the Lord God, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn, turn from your evil ways! For why should you die...

Its almost as if he wants us to fail so he will have someone to hurt, OR he loves us so much and his mercy is so much greater and love does win, I'm opting for the 2nd.

Love - godly love - cannot be divorced from justice and holiness. And both holiness and justice demand the punishment of wickedness. A God whose love overrides His justice and holiness is a wicked God. If love wins at the expense of holiness and justice, it is not love at all but evil.

I'm terrified of the first God, if almost everyone is thrown into hell, then satan has won a victory that God was unwilling or unable to counteract.

Hell has nothing to do with Satan except as his final destination. And you ought to be terrified of God - if you don't know Him as your Heavenly Father. Hell is about God's justice and holiness, not about Satan succeeding in his destructive aims.

If God gets what he wants, and he will all to be saved....

He desires all to be saved, yes. But He will not force all to be saved. We must choose Christ. If we don't, we suffer eternal loss. But that's on us, not God.

Selah.

 

[Kutte]

what a sentence!
One version of Hell would be getting strapped to a chair and having to watch repeat episodes of MASH, eternally.

LOL, Good point bettercallpaul.
God bless

 

[Foxfyre]

Yes, it would be a terrible thing to hear - especially in light of the fact that the Bible tells us our acceptance by God and our entrance into His kingdom has nothing whatever to do with our good works - or lack thereof. We are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. So, then, I never fear that I haven't done as much as Mother Theresa. Neither she nor I can ever deserve, can ever earn, our way into God's kingdom.

Titus 3:5-7
5 not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
6 whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.



Well, this is why it is important to know God's word thoroughly. It helps steer us from bondage to these silly rules to the legitimate ones God sets out for us in His word that ought to shape our living and doctrine. Jesus's sacrifice freed us from the penalty of death the law imposes upon us, but it did not exempt us from fulfilling the righteousness of the law.

Romans 8:2-4
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.



That depends, it seems to me, upon how closely one adheres to what Scripture actually reveals of God's punishment of the wicked.

Selah.

I don't disagree with all you say here. I just prefer to keep things more light and friendly. My view of Jesus is not a gloomy, preachy, solemn, legalistic fellow. He almost had to be gregarious and pleasant to be around and fun to be with or he wouldn't have been as popular as he was. I see him as full of light and loving and laughing.

I strongly believe in salvation by grace, and I am not one to insist that everybody see and understand anything of scriptures in exactly the same way. So long as the path leads to God, I don't think God is all that particular which path we choose to get there.

 

[Kutte]

Do you not think the things you share are truthful? Can a reader of this thread not find truth in your words? I think they can find truth in mine. Why else would I post? The presence of falsehoods in other posts seems to me all the more reason to share what is true. Certainly, giving up the field of battle against falsehood is not the way to promote the truth on this site.

Selah.

Hi aiki,

The problem with "truth' is that there are many "truths" floating around claiming to be "true" which makes it hard to determine the true truth. I know this sound silly but it is true. Too many people tend to believe in a truth that fits their views even if it is clearly false.
God bless

 

[Foxfyre]

Why would God create a universe where he is so easily offended and sets up a system where he gets to gleefully toss almost everybody in hell. Its almost as if he wants us to fail so he will have someone to hurt, OR he loves us so much and his mercy is so much greater and love does win, I'm opting for the 2nd.
I'm terrified of the first God, if almost everyone is thrown into hell, then satan has won a victory that God was unwilling or unable to counteract.
If God gets what he wants, and he will all to be saved....

I'm with you trackstacks. (Interesting screen name ) I tried for years to be legalistic and a Bible literalist, but it just didn't work for me and there was no joy.

Once I decided to just accept God's love and grace and do my best to love him as best as I could, it has been so much more pleasant and every day brings some joy. That means I leave those things that are God's prerogative for Him to worry about and don't pretend to have the power or knowledge He has in such matters.

I do think to love Jesus is to live and witness in a way that encourages others to become curious and want to know him. We can only arrange the introduction and then leave it to God to take it from there.

And I don't know a soul who ever chose to know and love God or receive His blessings and grace by being told he/she was going to hell.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

The problem with "truth' is that there are many "truths" floating around claiming to be "true" which makes it hard to determine the true truth.

Actually, and as written, it is not hard at all, unless someone is one of those groups that YHWH hides things from.

The disciples were sometimes(often?) slow learning, and weak in faith, as Jesus chastised them about that,
but with Jesus training them, they learned the TRUTH - the TRUTH that others had longed for but did not have, as Jesus said to them.

It is the same today.

 

[LadyCrosstalk]

Isaiah 66:24 shows others will go out and look at them.
They will see the men that transgressed against God and be abhorred. The only reason that I can come up with for this scenario is God will use the wicked as a warning to never again sin against Him.
OT verses show this same pattern as to - so all Israel will hear and fear. and obey

Since Isaiah's great concern was the Millennial Kingdom, I believe that the 66:24 passage is his vision of those who are punished during the Millennial Reign. If so, it should be seen as a temporary judgment--until the Final Judgment at the ending of the Millennial Kingdom--when Hades and Death itself are thrown into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14). Note that some translations refer to to the Greek hades as "the grave" but that doesn't make any particular amount of sense since it is paired with "death". Rather, it makes more sense to be the destruction of the temporary place of the wicked dead and then death itself as the final enemy of God (see 1 Corinthians 15:26).

One thing that has confused the issue is that, in our English translations, both Hades and Gehenna (the Lake of Fire) are referred to as "hell". I believe that they are two different places. Jesus used the two different words in various contexts (you can look them up in the Greek and it helps to make better sense of Jesus' words). In Hellenized Jewish understanding, hades was merely "the place of the dead" that was divided into two sections--the very pleasant place of the righteous dead, Paradise (or "Abraham's bosom"). The other was the place of torment--a "holding tank," if you will, before final disposition of the souls imprisoned there, at the Final Judgment (called the "Second Death" in Revelation 20:14).

In Hades, there was an unbridgeable gulf between the two sections, apparently. This can be seen clearly in Jesus' description of the two different fates of the "other Lazarus" and "the rich man" from Luke 16. Some Christians believe that the souls in the Paradise section of Hades were the ones Jesus preached to after His death, and who He took to heaven, to God's throne, when He ascended to the Father. My Messianic friends tell me that these are the "friends of the Bridegroom" who will witness the "marriage of the Lamb" to His Bride, the Church.

Please correct me, if I am wrong, but the only ones who are said to be tormented day and night "forever and ever" are Satan, the Antichrist, the False Prophet (Revelation 20:10) and those who take the Mark of the Beast (Revelation 14:11). The term, "forever and ever" seems to be referring to eternity as opposed to "forever" which is, according to my Messianic Jewish friends, said to be just a very long time--such as the 1000-year Millennial Reign.

If we take the notion of the "Second Death" literally, it could be that "ordinary" condemned souls are simply destroyed by being thrown into the Lake of Fire, after the Final Judgment (see Revelation 18:8 for the fate of those following the harlot of Babylon). The ones said to be punished eternally have a special status as defiantly and knowingly following Satan in his ultimate rebellion against the living Creator God of the universe. You can see this incredible defiance in the Book of Revelation, among those who have taken the Mark of the Beast. They KNOW that it is God and the Lamb who are sending judgment on them and yet they refuse to repent anyway (see Revelation 6:16-17 and 9:21). I believe that the "Mark" will be Satan's horrific mimic of the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit in those belonging to Christ. That is likely why there will be no going back from it. I believe that those taking the Mark will be conformed to Satan's likeness from having willingly taken that Mark. Judas Iscariot was likely the first to take that Mark (John 13:27).

 

[bbbbbbb]

Since Isaiah's great concern was the Millennial Kingdom, I believe that the 66:24 passage is his vision of those who are punished during the Millennial Reign. If so, it should be seen as a temporary judgment--until the Final Judgment at the ending of the Millennial Kingdom--when Hades and Death itself are thrown into the Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:14). Note that some translations refer to to the Greek hades as "the grave" but that doesn't make any particular amount of sense since it is paired with "death". Rather, it makes more sense to be the destruction of the temporary place of the wicked dead and then death itself as the final enemy of God (see 1 Corinthians 15:26).

One thing that has confused the issue is that, in our English translations, both Hades and Gehenna (the Lake of Fire) are referred to as "hell". I believe that they are two different places. Jesus used the two different words in various contexts (you can look them up in the Greek and it helps to make better sense of Jesus' words). In Hellenized Jewish understanding, hades was merely "the place of the dead" that was divided into two sections--the very pleasant place of the righteous dead, Paradise (or "Abraham's bosom"). The other was the place of torment--a "holding tank," if you will, before final disposition of the souls imprisoned there, at the Final Judgment (called the "Second Death" in Revelation 20:14).

In Hades, there was an unbridgeable gulf between the two sections, apparently. This can be seen clearly in Jesus' description of the two different fates of the "other Lazarus" and "the rich man" from Luke 16. Some Christians believe that the souls in the Paradise section of Hades were the ones Jesus preached to after His death, and who He took to heaven, to God's throne, when He ascended to the Father. My Messianic friends tell me that these are the "friends of the Bridegroom" who will witness the "marriage of the Lamb" to His Bride, the Church.

Please correct me, if I am wrong, but the only ones who are said to be tormented day and night "forever and ever" are Satan, the Antichrist, the False Prophet (Revelation 20:10) and those who take the Mark of the Beast (Revelation 14:11). The term, "forever and ever" seems to be referring to eternity as opposed to "forever" which is, according to my Messianic Jewish friends, said to be just a very long time--such as the 1000-year Millennial Reign.

If we take the notion of the "Second Death" literally, it could be that "ordinary" condemned souls are simply destroyed by being thrown into the Lake of Fire, after the Final Judgment (see Revelation 18:8 for the fate of those following the harlot of Babylon). The ones said to be punished eternally have a special status as defiantly and knowingly following Satan in his ultimate rebellion against the living Creator God of the universe. You can see this incredible defiance in the Book of Revelation, among those who have taken the Mark of the Beast. They KNOW that it is God and the Lamb who are sending judgment on them and yet they refuse to repent anyway (see Revelation 6:16-17 and 9:21). I believe that the "Mark" will be Satan's horrific mimic of the permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit in those belonging to Christ. That is likely why there will be no going back from it. I believe that those taking the Mark will be conformed to Satan's likeness from having willingly taken that Mark. Judas Iscariot was likely the first to take that Mark.

Good point here. Hell and the Lake of Fire are, indeed, two distinct places. Hell is cast into the Lake of Fire which burns forever and ever, thus hell is temporal, but the Lake of Fire is eternal.