If we, in a place of extreme torment and dismay, are endlessly crying out for mercy (hell, more appropriately), will He answer us?
I don't think God will be able to hear us... part of the seperation is a lack of communion with God.
In Hab 1:13
"Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong."
If we die, without salvation, we are still evil in the eyes of God. God will not even look at us in Hell, becasue His nature of being God will not permit it. By His perfect nature He is limited: He cannot look on us in Hell. He can't look on us even now, excpet through our Mediator, Jesus Christ. After you are saved, you are reborn a new creatiojn in Christ, and after death, you are pure in the eyes of God, if you were saved before you died.
For the lost, God will respond: "Get away from me, I never knew you." What does that mean? Of coarse God knew of them.. He knows all things, knows the hair on everyone's head... what it means is that He never developed a relationship with that perosn, through Jesus Christ, while on earth, and now, He commands them to get away, becasue as a sinful spirit, God will never be able to develope that relationship.
God is Holy and Just. Nothing can violate that. To allow anyone into Heaven, to allow anyone into his presence even, to even allow a spirit who has not been transformed, and has remained sinful, into communjon with Him at all would nullify His Holy and Just nature.
To even communicate with a lost soul in Hell, God would have to be less then pefectly holy and Pure. And, God will not Deny His own nature to do so.
Does His mercy truly endureth forever?
More to the point: Can a God of everlasting Love and Mercy send someone to Hell of eternity? Yes is the answer.
As I said before, the bible tells us God is Holy. To be holy is to be incorruptable, pure, perfect, and sinless... all these traits are possessed by God alone. It is His nature to be Holy. The Bible tells us that God is Love. It tells us that He is Righteous: "Gos is a righteous judge". From this we can conclude that He is Perfectly Just as well. God must do what is right, or else He cannot be God.
With all of this in God's nature... if we disobey him, He must punish us, becasue it is the right thing to do. And, while there are specific finite actions we are punished for, there is something else that is infinite: Our sinful nature. The punishment for this? Death. It is mandotory for all. It must be paid, for the "wages of sin is death." There are only two poeple that can pay for you sinful nature... you (by default) and Jesus Christ (if you ask Him to.)
If we fail to accept this salvation from our payment of death, then we must be punished for our nature when we die, and we have to pay that punishment instead of Christ. Judgement is immediate upon death.
That judgement? Well, since God is infinite, when we stand before Him sinful, we are in offense to an infinite God. And this is the significant part. Being sinful isn't so bad to the sinner, but it is very bad to the one being offended by it: God. And because this offense is toward an infinite God, then He is infinitely offended... thus the punishment for this offense is on par: infinite... eternal. The punishment of God is eternal because the offense is eternal.
This offense is Damnation: an eternal casting in hell. Not just a punishment, but a damnation.
Everything about God is eternal, including his judgements: At the time of judgement, for the saved, covered in Christ's blood: eternal Life, for those missing that covering: eternal damnation. What is damnation? It is a state of eternal seperation and lack of communion with God.
What, my dear brother, is going on in 1 Peter? 1 Peter 3:19 talks about Jesus taking on all sin (just taking the unjust), and going to minister the the Spirits in prison already. Why is He ministering to Spirits that have been disobedient if there is no hope of salvation?
These Spirits He is "ministering" to are not the disobedient, but the obedient. These are the saints of the OT, the ones who had Faith in God, and followed God. They are the "saved" of the OT, though salvation could not yet come until the death of Christ. It is now, that Christ ministers to them, in essence fullfilling thier faith in Him they had prior to knowing Him. These are not all of the dead, but the dead saints of the OT.
(This one REALLY gets me
)
For the gospel has for this purpose been preached
EVEN TO THOSE WHO ARE DEAD, that though THEY ARE
JUDGED IN THE FLESH AS MEN they may
LIVE in the spirit according to the will of God.
Can life emerge from judgement?? Can the dead receive salvation?? It might appear so!
These are the Dead in Christ. They too were saved by Faith not in what Christ has done, like we are, but inthe promise of What He would do. example: Abraham believed and had Faith in God, toward the eventual virth of Jesus Christ. It is this Faith in the coming of Christ, in the coming work He wold do, that saved Abraham. But until that work was complete, salvation was not fullfilled. Once Chris died, he ministered to Abraham, and the other Saints of old, and fullfilled thier salvation.
One or two more: I just can't seem to ignore such scripture!!
1 Timothy 4:10, 11
For to this end we both labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, WHO IS THE SAVIOUR OF ALL MEN, ESPECIALLY THOSE WHO BELIEVE.
Why does Timothy say "...especially those who believe"? Christ is the savior for all... but not of all. He came for everyone, but the salvation which is for all, must also be accepted. From this, not all will be saved, though all were given the chance.
I won't lie, I don't pretend to understand the eternal purposes of God, even a little. But I know what these scriptures say. I also know that "they will be tormented day and night, forever and ever." (Revelation 19:10) So how can these both be true? I know something isn't consistant in my understanding: I also know that a God whose mercy extends forever will not torment something forever and ever, just for the purpsoses of torment. There is an end in mind!! Punishment is a means, not an end!!! Would you endlessly torture one of your children? Let's say you were watching the torture of your children, would you let it continue, even if they were disobedient, through and through? HOW MUCH MORE SO WITH GOD, WHO LOVES US MORE THAN A MOTHER HER SUCKLING CHILD? Something isn't fitting here, and I don't know what it is. Something isn't right, and I can't tell where.
In Him,
Deg
We all learn daily..
Below are some thoughts I had, as I wrote this reply, but never found a place relevant for them. They most likely are topics of thier own, but for you here if you wish to read them..
If judgment upon the sinner regarding his sinfulness were temporal, then it means that a sinner's suffering is sufficient to appease an infinite God. While God is a God of Mercy, He is also Just. It just happenes that the wages of sin.. of being a sinner, is death, an eternal death.
I get bothered by poeple in general, who claim that going to hell is a "punishment" of God, that God chose to send them there... the thing is, it is not God's choice to make.. he deffered that choice to us. Does He have the power to send us there? Yes, does He? Technically, He does, since He sits in judgement, but even then, if anyone goes ot hell, they go Loved of God. God did everything He ocuyld to save us... but it is up to us to be saved. God will still love us if we reject Him.
Ezekiel: 18:32 "
For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord GOD: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye."
Exekial 33:11
"Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways; for why will ye die, O house of Israel?"
The Bible paints a picture of those in Hell and how they feel about God.. not wanting of repentence even then... Rev 16:11 "And blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and repented not of their deeds."
