Why is Hell permanent?

[SauceCream]

A question I have been asking myself lately...

Why is damnation in hell permanent? Why not another chance after a certain duration of punishment?

 

[Faulty]

Why not just take advantage of the chance you have now instead?

 

[simplee_mandee]

SauceCream
A question I have been asking myself lately...

Why is damnation in hell permanent? Why not another chance after a certain duration of punishment?

I think a lot of people ask this question. I used to think about that too and get stressed . Hell wasn't created for humans but satan and his minions. Satan and the angels knew better and were born into perfection unlike us humans yet they wanted to do their own thing and rebel. Part of it has to do with free will.

On earth we get to pick either God or the devil and if we pick the devil we are going to get eternally punished right along with Him. The Lord wants us to love Him on our own instead of making us like a bunch of robots or puppets that just fulfill His will and a lot of us get a whole life time to find out the truth. Pretty much when we go to hell its because on earth we (unknowingly/knowingly) sided with the devil and there is no middle road.

God is an eternal and infinite Being (Psalm 90:2). As a result, all sin requires an eternal punishment. God’s holy, perfect, and infinite character has been offended by our sin. Although to our human minds our sin is limited in time, to God—who is outside of time—the sin that He hates goes on and on (if the person doesn't have Christ in they're life to forgive and cleanse them). Our sin is eternally before Him and must be eternally punished in order to satisfy His holy justice.

Salvation isn't a hard thing to have, Jesus died on the cross so that we don't have to go there ! Jesus went through a lot of suffering for us in every way and He didn't have to die for us at all but He loves us so much that He don't want to see anybody go to hell. All of us deserve to go to there but He still went out of His way to come to earth and save us.

The people who reject Christ's sacrifice or say there are other ways to heaven are rejecting everything that He has done for us. Its like a slap in the face pretty much saying that we don't need Jesus and can be saved on our own.

As long as we are on this earth alive and breathing we have many chances because God is so merciful. We may mess up sometimes and get off track but the Lord will always welcome us with open arms if we return to Him like the Prodigal Son.

 

[elopez]

A question I have been asking myself lately...

Why is damnation in hell permanent? Why not another chance after a certain duration of punishment?

Second chances seem to prove faulty. Then it would be going on to request a third, and fourth, and fifth chance, and why should it stop there? Our chance is here and now and we get plenty of them in this life.

 

[Sketcher]

I think I'm well past my billionth chance . . .

 

[ivanthegood]

i think we all get enough chances the way it is

 

[drich0150]

because we are asked to choose in this life where we wish to spend eternity. God simply holds us to our choice.

 

[ViaCrucis]

I'm not convinced Hell has to be permanent.

It's not my place to place walls around God's grace and mercy, He will have mercy on whomever He will.

I'm rather comfortable allowing this sort of matter be in God's hands.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[hedrick]

If the OP wants a full discussion, please post in Unorthodox Theology. In this section of the forum, only the traditional answer is permitted.

 

[ebia]

A question I have been asking myself lately...

Why is damnation in hell permanent? Why not another chance after a certain duration of punishment?

Give yourself the time to read The Great Divorce (CS Lewis)

 

[Cuddles333]

Why is Hell permanent?


Like what has been posted, this place of punishment was created for Satan and his minions...not resurrected humans. Since God is not of mankind, it is difficult for us to understand how He could be so Stoic in His decisions. Yes, He has the right to reward His Children eternally and to punish eternally those who refused to disown Satan and come to God. But in our minds, unless they killed a deity who would have lived forever, eternal punishment for that human seems very extreme.

 

[FundiMentalist]

If the OP wants a full discussion, please post in Unorthodox Theology. In this section of the forum, only the traditional answer is permitted.

There's also this traditional answer that precedes the Great Schism:

Eastern Orthodox Christian theology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Can Orthodox beliefs here be discussed as orthodox?

 

[lucaspa]

A question I have been asking myself lately...

Why is damnation in hell permanent? Why not another chance after a certain duration of punishment?

I'm going to give you a different answer: I'm not sure Hell is permanent. Hell is not an OT concept. As a concept of eternal punishment it first appears during the persecution of Christians. Christians are being subjected to all kinds of horrendous deaths for no other reason than that some stupid Roman emperor is sadistic. It's obvious to them that they are not getting justice in this lifetime. Being human, they want the people responsible to get justice, so they have the persecutors get justice in the next lifetime.

So, it's not clear under an all merciful, forgiving, loving God that He would condemn the persecutors to begin with. Christians have, quite understandable, human trouble with a God who is all forgiving and would never punish even the most heinous of individuals. I find myself hoping God consigns a child molester/murderer to the most painful part of Hell and never lets that person out. OTOH, scripture teaches us that this isn't what God is going to do. So Hell may be a human concept that the human authors put into writings that became scripture.

Even if Hell exists and people get put there for punishment, God could still let them out. Supposedly we all are forgiven sins just as heinous when we ask for forgiveness, or repent. Remember, supposedly all sins are equal, so my harsh thoughts about my rude neighbor are just as bad as the kidnap, molestation, and murder of a child. Tough concept, isn't it?

So what if Hell is an asylum for the theologically insane? What if God is trying to get your attention by giving you really bad consequences for your sins and crimes? After all, don't we spank children, give them time-outs, etc? What do we do as parents when the child says they are truly sorry? Don't we forgive them? Would God do less? So what happens if Hitler is in Hell and realizes how badly he treated people and sincerely repents? Does God keep Hitler in Hell? How could that possible square with a forgiving God?

My answer to all those questions is: if the person sincerely repented and sincerely asked for forgiveness, then God would grant it, just like He forgives every other sinner, such as you and I.

 

[elman]

A question I have been asking myself lately...

Why is damnation in hell permanent? Why not another chance after a certain duration of punishment?

I don't believe we will be alive in hell. I think God gifts us with this life and if we use the first gift to become loving beings, God may gift us with more life. I see no reason to believe God will gift us with more life if we fail to use this first gift to become loving and kind. Some religions do believe in reincarnation--recycling of life.

 

[elman]

I'm going to give you a different answer: I'm not sure Hell is permanent. Hell is not an OT concept. As a concept of eternal punishment it first appears during the persecution of Christians. Christians are being subjected to all kinds of horrendous deaths for no other reason than that some stupid Roman emperor is sadistic. It's obvious to them that they are not getting justice in this lifetime. Being human, they want the people responsible to get justice, so they have the persecutors get justice in the next lifetime.

So, it's not clear under an all merciful, forgiving, loving God that He would condemn the persecutors to begin with. Christians have, quite understandable, human trouble with a God who is all forgiving and would never punish even the most heinous of individuals. I find myself hoping God consigns a child molester/murderer to the most painful part of Hell and never lets that person out. OTOH, scripture teaches us that this isn't what God is going to do. So Hell may be a human concept that the human authors put into writings that became scripture.

Even if Hell exists and people get put there for punishment, God could still let them out. Supposedly we all are forgiven sins just as heinous when we ask for forgiveness, or repent. Remember, supposedly all sins are equal, so my harsh thoughts about my rude neighbor are just as bad as the kidnap, molestation, and murder of a child. Tough concept, isn't it?

So what if Hell is an asylum for the theologically insane? What if God is trying to get your attention by giving you really bad consequences for your sins and crimes? After all, don't we spank children, give them time-outs, etc? What do we do as parents when the child says they are truly sorry? Don't we forgive them? Would God do less? So what happens if Hitler is in Hell and realizes how badly he treated people and sincerely repents? Does God keep Hitler in Hell? How could that possible square with a forgiving God?

My answer to all those questions is: if the person sincerely repented and sincerely asked for forgiveness, then God would grant it, just like He forgives every other sinner, such as you and I.

I don't think all sins are equal. First John speaks of sin that is not unto death and sin that is unto death.

 

[lucaspa]

I don't think all sins are equal. First John speaks of sin that is not unto death and sin that is unto death.

We might want to take this to the Wesleyan forum. The www.umc.org website is not responding right now, so I can't check how the UMC views this issue. However, I will say I am using the Wesleyan quadrilateral in my approach.

You are thinking of 5:16-17. I find those verses perplexing because in verse 16 John says there is a sin that leads to death, but doesn't tell us which one that is: "If you see a Christian brother or sister [fn] sinning in a way that does not lead to death, you should pray, and God will give that person life. But there is a sin that leads to death, and I am not saying you should pray for those who commit it.

Verse 17 says "All wicked actions are sin, but not every sin leads to death." That is not consistent with verse 16. Now John seems to be saying that there are multiple sins that can lead to death, not just one.

Other NT writers disagree with John. Paul says in Romans that all sin leads to death:
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" 5:12 Later in verse 21 Paul says that we get out of death by grace: "That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. "

Paul repeats this in 6.23 "For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. " Paul doesn't say that some sin leads to death and others don't.

James agrees with Paul in 1:15 "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. "

So John is the odd man out. I don't see anywhere that Jesus makes distinctions between sins. In fact, that is one of the points of John 8: the men had no right to stone the adulteress because they had all committed their own sins. What's more, Jesus makes a point that even desiring a woman in your thoughts is equal to adultery. Even being angry with someone is equal to murder. That message is equalizing sins. Since John never specifies which sins are which, I tend to think that Paul and James are more correct.

 

[stan1953]

A question I have been asking myself lately...

Why is damnation in hell permanent? Why not another chance after a certain duration of punishment?

Hell is NOT permanent. Hell comes to an end in Rev 20:11-15
That's when Eternal punishment starts, but this is a spiritual punishment, not a physical one. The punishment is knowing you could have obeyed God and spent eternity with him, but instead you will spend eternity without His light and glory, and that it was YOUR choice to do so. You will NOT be able to lie or fool yourself any longer.

 

[elman]

We might want to take this to the Wesleyan forum. The www.umc.org website is not responding right now, so I can't check how the UMC views this issue. However, I will say I am using the Wesleyan quadrilateral in my approach.

You are thinking of 5:16-17. I find those verses perplexing because in verse 16 John says there is a sin that leads to death, but doesn't tell us which one that is: "If you see a Christian brother or sister [fn] sinning in a way that does not lead to death, you should pray, and God will give that person life. But there is a sin that leads to death, and I am not saying you should pray for those who commit it.

Verse 17 says "All wicked actions are sin, but not every sin leads to death." That is not consistent with verse 16. Now John seems to be saying that there are multiple sins that can lead to death, not just one.

Other NT writers disagree with John. Paul says in Romans that all sin leads to death:
"Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" 5:12 Later in verse 21 Paul says that we get out of death by grace: "That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. "

Paul repeats this in 6.23 "For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. " Paul doesn't say that some sin leads to death and others don't.

James agrees with Paul in 1:15 "Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. "

So John is the odd man out. I don't see anywhere that Jesus makes distinctions between sins. In fact, that is one of the points of John 8: the men had no right to stone the adulteress because they had all committed their own sins. What's more, Jesus makes a point that even desiring a woman in your thoughts is equal to adultery. Even being angry with someone is equal to murder. That message is equalizing sins. Since John never specifies which sins are which, I tend to think that Paul and James are more correct.

I don't think Jesus ever taught that being angry with someone is the same as killing them. I know you have scripture that indicates that, but it makes no sense at all and is not compatible with what God has written on my heart. The fact remains John says there is a sin not unto death. I understand the consequences of a life in which we do not love or have compassion on others is the failure to receive the gift of eternal life--thus the consequences of sin is death. Ezekiel 18 says it this way--the wicked shall die and not live, but the righteous shall live and not die. If I am going to pick and chose between scriptures as to which is from God and which is not--I pick the words of John that not all sin is unto death. This carries with it the idea that we can be less than perfect in our love for others and still have hope of eternal life because of the grace and love of our Creator. That is, I think, divine truth-i.e. we will never deserve eternal life, but that does not mean we have no hope of receiving it. Our hope is grounded on the love of our Creator for us, not on the perfection of our own loving actions.

 

[FreeinChrist]

This thread is closed for review.

Threads start in this area need to be started by Non-Christians. The only non-Christian allowed to respond would be the OP.

 

[FreeinChrist]

MOD HAT


Moving this to Unorthodox Theology from Exploring Christianity.