Who Goes To Hell?

JacksBratt said:

Yep.... the narrow way is not as traveled as the broad way...

Your point?

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Saint Steven said:

Seriously? Wow.

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Saint Steven said:

You claimed that there is no way to estimate the percentage of the "lost".
What I call countless billions. My rough calculations below. The "lost" = over 66% (way over)

You are accusing God of creating countless billions with the sole purpose of incinerating the VAST majority. Explain why that plan makes sense.

Saint Steven said: ↑
And it is possible to calculate in rough figures. World population figures (7.5 billion) and world Christianity figures (2.4 billion) are readily available. Not even one third of the world population is professing Christianity. And we could probably agree that the 2.4 billions is generous. Including those who are Christian politically as well as nominal Christians that have no relationship with Christ. Add to these numbers all those who have lived and died since Christ and you have the countless billions I often refer to.

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JacksBratt said:

Until then, God tolerates the presence of sin in order to accomplish his purposes with mankind. Thank goodness, because if God truly could not be in the presence of sin, none of us would be here!

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JacksBratt said:

Why is there even the need for God to send His only begotten son?

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JacksBratt said:

God's plan, God's purpose, God's intent.... was that none be lost..

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JacksBratt said:

Do you think that God wanted people to deny Christ?

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JacksBratt said:

It's about eternity.....

Here:

Can God Be in the Presence of Sin? – #3 Post of 2010

The Bible teaches that God is opposed to sin and evil, that he is holy and righteous. We know that eventually he will quarantine evil from good when he creates the New Heaven and Earth (Rev. 21 ). At that time, God will physically separate those who love him from those who don’t. Those who love him will no longer be in the presence of sin from that point forward.


Until then, God tolerates the presence of sin in order to accomplish his purposes with mankind. Thank goodness, because if God truly could not be in the presence of sin, none of us would be here!

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Saint Steven said:

No one WANTS to go to hell. (assuming there is one)
That is a doctrine from the STATE church, intended to blame the victim for what the STATE church claims God has planned for his own creation. Thus inferring that God has failed to save his own creation due to poor planning.

Someone might claim they would prefer to go to hell, rather than associate with church folks. (can't say I blame them) But it is said for shock value rather than a will to actually consign themselves to eternal conscious torment with no hope of escape. The same people do everything they can to acquire comfort in this world. That's what they REALLY want. IMHO

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Hieronymus said:

The unholy can not be in the Prescence of God, rather.
That's why Adam, Eve and the serpent were kicked out of Eden.
God is a consuming Fire, in which only Gold can survive.

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Saint Steven said:

We both understand that as part of the plan of salvation.

All three doctrinal views of the final judgment include that as part.
Universal Restoration does not preclude the atonement, it makes the BEST use of it.
The atonement wasn't ONLY for our sins.

1 John 2:2
He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

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Saint Steven said:

You are saying he failed then?
Failed plan? Failed purpose? Failed intent? Wow.

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Saint Steven said:

I would say that he both expected and anticipated it.
Do you think he was surprised and dismayed by that?
Seems more like, "God in the hands of angry sinners." to me.

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Hieronymus said:

The unholy can not be in the Prescence of God, rather.
That's why Adam, Eve and the serpent were kicked out of Eden.
God is a consuming Fire, in which only Gold can survive.

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ViaCrucis said:

I never said anything about eternal conscious torment with no hope to escape.

But the general position of the Church has been that "going" to hell isn't about God sending anyone to hell, but rather hell being born out of choice.

I read a kind of parable once that I've always enjoyed.

There was once a man who received a vision of heaven and hell. The man was taken to a great big banquet hall, with great big tables, a feast set upon the tables, and around the tables seated many people. Enough food to feed everyone several times over. However those seated at this feast were miserable and complaining, grumbling and angry. They had been given large and unwieldy spoons, and as they tried to serve and feed themselves they continued to spill food on themselves. They tried again and again to feed themselves with their overly long spoons and failed time and again, and so they were miserable, angry, unhappy, unsatisfied.

The man was then taken into another room, identical to the first. With great big tables just like the first, a feast set upon the tables, and many people seated around the tables. Like in the first banquet hall there was enough food to feed everyone several times over. These people even had the same long, unwieldy spoons. However, these people were happy. They were joyous, and smiling, enjoying one another's company. These people, instead of trying to feed themselves with their overly long spoons instead were able to reach across the table, and serve and feed their neighbor. And as they served each other rather than themselves, they were fed, they were satisfied, joyous and happy.

"It's not a question of God 'sending' us to Hell. In each of us there is something growing up which will of itself be Hell unless it is nipped in the bud." - C.S. Lewis

-CryptoLutheran

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Fullness of the Gentiles said:

I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with in my post. The word "hell" does not appear in the New Testament in the Greek texts - every time we read the word "hell" in the New Testament, it's a translation of one of those three words, just as my post states.

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Der Alter said:

That the English word "hell" is not in the New Testament is not really relevant. None of our English words are in the Greek NT. My post was to show that the words "hades" and "gehenna" are correctly translated "hell" in our English NT. The concept of a place of fiery, eternal punishment existed in Israel before and during the time of Jesus they called in both Gehinnom/sheol and in the NT Gehenna and hades.
Jesus would have known about the belief and if it was wrong He certainly would have corrected them.

There was never a burning trash dump in valley of Gehenna. As my previous post proved "Gehenna" referred to the place of punishment. There was a garbage dump outside Jerusalem but it was in the Kidron valley not Gehenna.

The traditional explanation that a burning rubbish heap in the Valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem gave rise to the idea of a fiery Gehenna of judgment is attributed to Rabbi David Kimhi's commentary on Psalm 27:13 (ca. A.D. 1200). He maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. However, Strack and Billerbeck state that there is neither archaeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud and Midrasch, 5 vols. [Munich: Beck, 1922-56], 4:2:1030). Also a more recent author holds a similar view (Lloyd R. Bailey, "Gehenna: The Topography of Hell," Biblical Archeologist 49 [1986]: 189.
Source, Bibliotheca Sacra / July–September 1992
Scharen: Gehenna in the Synoptics Pt. 1​

/…..Note there is no “archaeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, [that Gehenna was ever used as a garbage dump] in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources” If Gehenna was ever used as a garbage dump there should be broken pottery, tools, utensils, bones, etc. but there is no such evidence.

“Gehenna is presented as diametrically opposed to ‘life’: it is better to enter life than to go to Gehenna. . .It is common practice, both in scholarly and less technical works, to associate the description of Gehenna with the supposedly contemporary garbage dump in the valley of Hinnom. This association often leads scholars to emphasize the destructive aspects of the judgment here depicted: fire burns until the object is completely consumed. Two particular problems may be noted in connection with this approach. First, there is no convincing evidence in the primary sources for the existence of a fiery rubbish dump in this location (in any case, a thorough investigation would be appreciated). Secondly, the significant background to this passage more probably lies in Jesus’ allusion to Isaiah 66:24.”
(“The Duration of Divine Judgment in the New Testament” in The Reader Must Understand edited by K. Brower and M. W. Ellion, p. 223, emphasis mine)
G. R. Beasley-Murray in Jesus and the Kingdom of God:
“Ge-Hinnom (Aramaic Ge-hinnam, hence the Greek Geenna), ‘The Valley of Hinnom,’ lay south of Jerusalem, immediately outside its walls. The notion, still referred to by some commentators, that the city’s rubbish was burned in this valley, has no further basis than a statement by the Jewish scholar Kimchi (sic) made about A.D. 1200; it is not attested in any ancient source.” (p. 376n.92)
The Burning Garbage Dump of Gehenna is a myth - Archaeology, Biblical History & Textual Criticism
Excavations near the Temple Mount and within the residential areas have already shown that no waste had accumulated there (Reich and Billig 2000), and thus waste must have been removed, most likely in an organized manner. Recently, the contemporaneous city-dump was identified on the eastern slope of the south-eastern hill of Jerusalem in the form of a thick mantle (up to 10 m, 200,000 m3 ) (Reich and Shukron 2003). The dump is located roughly 100 m outside and south-east of the Temple Mount on the eastern slope of the Kidron Valley (fig. 1), and extends at least 400 m and is 50–70 m wide. Large amounts of pottery and coins date the dump to the Early Roman period (the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE up to the destruction of the city by the Romans in 70 CE). A preliminary study of the garbage (Bouchnik, Bar-Oz and Reich 2004; Bouchnik et al. 2005) showed the presence of animal bones.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...udy_of_the_City-Dump_of_Early_Roman_Jerusalem ​

First the grave/hell is never called prison in the NT and hell/the grave is never called prison.
Jesus did not preach to any souls in hell/the grave. Where 1 Pet 3:18-20 says Jesus preached was in the days of Noah and only 8 people were saved, Noah and his family, and they were alive not dead,

Not according to the sources I quoted, which it appears you did not even read.

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Fullness of the Gentiles said:

So Jesus died and went to hell, according to your theory, and preached to souls in hell who had no hope. Was Jesus there to rub their noses in their hopelessness then? ...
There is no "hell". It's an English word used for three different things: the abode of departed souls (hades), Tartarus (the bottomless pit), and the lake of fire (eternal torment).

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Der Alter said:

Once again it appears you did not read my post.
I said scripture NEVER says Jesus went to hell and preached to anyone.
First the Gehenna/hades is never called prison in the NT and hades/Gehenna is never called prison.
Jesus did not preach to any souls in hell/the grave. Where 1 Pet 3:18-20 says Jesus preached was in the days of Noah and only 8 people were saved, Noah and his family, and they were alive not dead,
In my previous unread post I provided evidence that the Jews in Israel before and during the time of Jesus believed in a place of eternal punishment and they called it both Ge Hinnom [valley of Hinnom] and sheol. Read my post.
In the 225 BC Greek translation of the OT Ge Hinnom was translated as Gehenna and sheol was translated "hades." Thus both hades and Gehenna refer to the place of eternal punishment in the NT .Read my post.
I explained everything in my 2 previous posts.

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Der Alter said:

Jesus did not preach to any souls in hell/the grave. Where 1 Pet 3:18-20 says Jesus preached was in the days of Noah and only 8 people were saved, Noah and his family, and they were alive not dead,

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Der Alter said:

Once again it appears you did not read my post.
I said scripture NEVER says Jesus went to hell and preached to anyone.
First the Gehenna/hades is never called prison in the NT and hades/Gehenna is never called prison.
Jesus did not preach to any souls in hell/the grave. Where 1 Pet 3:18-20 says Jesus preached was in the days of Noah and only 8 people were saved, Noah and his family, and they were alive not dead,
In my previous unread post I provided evidence that the Jews in Israel before and during the time of Jesus believed in a place of eternal punishment and they called it both Ge Hinnom [valley of Hinnom] and sheol. Read my post.
In the 225 BC Greek translation of the OT Ge Hinnom was translated as Gehenna and sheol was translated "hades." Thus both hades and Gehenna refer to the place of eternal punishment in the NT .Read my post.
I explained everything in my 2 previous posts.

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