Posted on 01/04/2013 8:17:11 PM PST by SoFloFreeper
Every once in a while, someone of note questions or denies the classic Christian belief of a literal hell with eternal, conscious suffering. Then a debate rages and becomes personal between representatives of various perspectives on the issue...
Hell is real and terrible. It is eternal. There is no possibility of amnesty or reprieve. Daniel says that some of the dead will be resurrected “to shame and everlasting contempt.” Jesus says, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment.” Paul tells us:
God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.
(Excerpt) Read more at theresurgence.com ...
I have thought of hell from this angle.
1) When David sinned against Uriah, he in fact confessed “against thee only have I sinned”.
2) God requires punishment to be proportional to the offense. “An eye for an eye.
3) God is perfect in glory, majesty... this is what trips up soul death arguments, a low view of God.
4) If we reject Christ’s perfect punishment for our sins, we are stuck with trying to atone with our very imperfect punishment. How long will it take? We never finish trying to pay. How bad will it be? You don’t want to know.
I didn't define good and evil, so you have a valid point.
Rather than define good, which is at the highest level of abstraction, in the highest genus, and convertible with being, let's look at evil.
Evil isn't a positive thing, like good. It is a negation.
For example, physical evils don't have existence, per se. Physical evils represent a lack of what properly belongs to a thing. For example, the evil of blindness doesn't have existence in itself. Rather, blindness is the lack of a property that belongs to eyes, i.e., vision. Vision exists; blindness, per se, does not, except logically. It's a term that we apply to the non-existence of vision.
This is how we can objectively define diseases as evils. Disease is not simply a label that can be applied subjectively.
A complete account may be gathered from the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, by whom the principles of St. Augustine are systematized, and to some extent supplemented. Evil, according to St. Thomas, is a privation, or the absence of some good which belongs properly to the nature of the creature. (I,Q. xiv, a. 10; Q. xlix, a. 3; Contra Gentiles, III, ix, x). There is therefore no "summum malum", or positive source of evil, corresponding to the "summum bonum", which is God (I, Q. xlix, a. 3; C. G., III, 15; De Malo, I, 1); evil being not "ens reale" but only "ens rationis"--i.e. it exists not as an objective fact, but as a subjective conception; things are evil not in themselves, but by reason of their relation to other things, or persons. All realities (entia) are in themselves good; they produce bad results only incidentally; and consequently the ultimate cause of evil if fundamentally good, as well as the objects in which evil is found (I, Q. xlix; cf. I, Q. v, 3; De Malo, I, 3). Thus the Manichaean dualism has no foundation in reason.The link above is worth studying. It's the most profound and concise explanation of evil, and its reconciliation with God's Goodness, that I've found.
--Evil
So the serpent told Eve the truth and God lied to her.
For a period of about 5 years Hitler caused the agonizing deaths of 10 million people. So [human] justice would have him experience all the pain he caused. Which may take about a million years.
The second million years of agony would just be gratuitous.
No one would freely choose endless agony. It’s not reasonable to think this and it’s not Biblical either.
Wherefore in order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned.
On the first Sunday after the terrible events of 9/11, the preacher at my church made a passing reference to this and I'll confess that it brought many of us comfort knowing that, from Heaven, the redeemed in Christ would indeed see the Islamist terrorists enduring unspeakable pain for all of eternity.
I would surmise that we likely differ on this and perhaps quite strongly. In fact there's a school of thought that Aquinas was giving a pass to sadism (or at least schadenfreude). To the contrary, and from my perspective, the saints in this scenario aren't "delighting" in the actual suffering of the damned as such but do indeed get unspeakable joy in witnessing the Righteous Justice of God meted out for time everlasting.
God rules as God rules. I’m satisfied with that.
I fervently HOPE Hitler was saved. Because I’m a Nazi? No. Just the opposite.
I hope Hitler was saved because that would DELIGHT God and all of Heaven. And what delights God should delight us. No?
That is the Truest thing any human can say.
God’s Will be done.
If Hitler was not a believer in Jesus (he didn’t have the fruit it seems) than he will not be given eternal life - he will die. He is not given immortality, he remains mortal - he will cease to exist. I don’t believe the Bible teaches ultimate reconciliation or universalism - the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life!
Like our president (who's scampaign website claimed was a LIFELONG Christian).
2004 Interview: Obama Talks about Jesus, Heaven and Sin (June 3, 2008 CBN)
GG: Who’s Jesus to you?OBAMA: Right. Jesus is a historical figure for me, and he’s also a bridge between God and man, in the Christian faith, and one that I think is powerful precisely because he serves as that means of us reaching something higher. And he’s also a wonderful teacher. I think it’s important for all of us, of whatever faith, to have teachers in the flesh and also teachers in history.
GG: The conversation stopper, when you say you’re a Christian and leave it at that.
OBAMA: Where do you move forward with that? This is something that I’m sure I’d have serious debates with my fellow Christians about. I think that the difficult thing about any religion, including Christianity, is that at some level there is a call to evangelize and prostelytize. There’s the belief, certainly in some quarters, that people haven’t embraced Jesus Christ as their personal savior that they're going to hell.
GG: You don’t believe that?
OBAMA: I find it hard to believe that my God would consign four-fifths of the world to hell. I can’t imagine that my God would allow some little Hindu kid in India who never interacts with the Christian faith to somehow burn for all eternity. That’s just not part of my religious makeup...
GG: Do you believe in heaven?
OBAMA: Do I believe in the harps and clouds and wings?
GG: A place spiritually you go to after you die?
OBAMA: What I believe in is that if I live my life as well as I can, that I will be rewarded. I don’t presume to have knowledge of what happens after I die. But I feel very strongly that whether the reward is in the here and now or in the hereafter, the aligning myself to my faith and my values is a good thing.
When I tuck in my daughters at night and I feel like I’ve been a good father to them, and I see in them that I am transferring values that I got from my mother and that they’re kind people and that they’re honest people, and they’re curious people, that’s a little piece of heaven.
GG: Do you believe in sin?
OBAMA: Yes.
GG: What is sin?
OBAMA: Being out of alignment with my values.
GG: What happens if you have sin in your life?
OBAMA: I think it’s the same thing as the question about heaven. In the same way that if I’m true to myself and my faith that that is its own reward, when I’m not true to it, it’s its own punishment.
12-09-2008
President George W. Bush said his belief that God created the world is not incompatible with scientific proof of evolution.
In an interview with ABC's "Nightline" on Monday, the president also said he probably is not a literalist when reading the Bible although an individual can learn a great deal from it, including the New Testament teaching that God sent his only son.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2145756/posts
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Here is an excerpt of the interview -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWhEpbCGHWQ
This first question I have to ask is if you believe Scripture to be God breathed and without error. If you answer you don’t believe that then the discussion is over because you can make up whatever you please. It is the Gospel according to DManA and I don’t know that one. If you do believe God’s Word as inspired in it’s entirety then it would be impossible to find the concepts of annihilationism or universalism in the Bible.
A rather timely example occurred recently in my life. I was at a funeral on Thursday. My cousin died on Sunday, but her body did not cease to exist at that time. On Sunday, her spirit departed, leaving her body in a state of death. Of course, the body continued to exist, as it was brought to the mortuary for preparation for the funeral. According to the Bible, her spirit continues to exist, and her spirit may be alive (Heaven) or dead (Hell). That is of course, dependent upon whether she put her trust in the Lord, or not.
Spiritual death means that one's spirit exists in a state of death, which is the absence of the Lord's presence in your spirit, but it is NOT the spirit's ceasing to exist. When God spoke the truth ("...surely you will die." Gen 2:17) and Satan, that old serpent lied ("...Surely you will not die! Gen 3:4), it was concerning the spirit.
My world view is that Christians are in this world but not of it,
Its not our choice but only to accept his grace, its his grace that saves us, God is sovereign and his ways are not our ways, don’t ask for justice or we’ll all perish,
Satan attempted to give Jesus a way out from the punitive measures of sin, from suffering and death to obtain the kingdom, but Jesus only quoted scripture until Satan fled,
I’ve always suspected this is why God brooded over the creation, knowing that many would always choose evil, but he knew you and me and everyone that was, is, and ever will be, and we were always supposed to be alive in the world, this is his omnipotence,
And because you asked, I’ll ramble on for a moment of what I believe about this world, because its the only way I can reference the necessity of events that must come to their full relating to the ultimate disposition of us all,
There are principalities and powers and rulers of darkness in high places for which we believers are in spiritual battle against, the war is raging whether all the participants are aware or not.
Why prophecy is so important is because the very one telling us the end from the beginning is also describing in very physical and direct terms the extreme punitive measures to be meted out as not only upon his people (Israel) who having rejected the provisions of the Law and Ordinances and being punished in the flesh (here and now) and were punished from 70 AD to 1967 with the destruction of Jerusalem and the diaspora, and further for which we have in this past month (December 2012) witnessed with our own eyes how this world system is attempting to undo that very restoration from the physical punitive measures God enacted in keeping his ordinances with Israel, and whereby he will use to complete the covenant which is tied to the land as much as to the people with whom it was made, and for the Earth and the final Jubilee restoration of all things under the law as recounted in Daniel Chapter 7 and Revelation Chapters 4 and 5.
The “court is sitting” when the judgement begins and Jesus is the kinsman of Adam, who having inserted himself into the holy framework of the Laws and Ordinances which he himself provided, alone is able to redeem this world away from a failed Adam, who gave it to Satan and its certain destruction,
And then to the believers being his Church, in the spirit with his Kingdom and with all power to bind and loose in the spirit, and not the flesh (Israel) on the Earth, who have the blessed hope of being found in the Lambs Book of Life written (before) the foundation of the world, for which the second death has no power,
We’re told in Revelation 9:6
“And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.”
This I believe was written for those who expect and even desire this world to be all there is, then blissful nothingness, if there is a God then he must be good, but how then holy? And when they “shall see these things begin to come to pass” as prophesied. The destruction and judgement upon all flesh, much less the coming casting away of their immortal spirit out of Gods holy presence, coming precisely as Jesus said, then instead of looking up without knowledge they’ll be troubled but without understanding to find their way back because they’ve exchanged the truth for a lie, with their own supposed worldly enlightenment, having their consciousness seared with doctrines of demons seduced with their more pleasant versions of the truth and rejecting whats clearly written.
We all must come humbly to a saving knowledge of his truth, it’s always been the arrogance of the flesh, and in the flesh we all fail, and if we fail we all want oblivion. But there’s nothing we can do to measure up, we can only take the pardon granted to all of us freely for the asking, by the only one who died in our place so we wont have to face the second death,
“The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.” 2 Peter 2:9-10
“Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.” Revelation 20:14-15
“then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able. When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and he shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence ye are: Then shall ye begin to say, We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets. But he shall say, I tell you, I know you not whence ye are; depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out.” Luke 13:23-28
Hollywood is always telling us to trust our hearts. But the Bible tells us that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desparately wicket: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9).
What we can trust is what God's word tells us about who his children are. The unsaved are NOT his children. Those who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to these he gives the power to become he sons: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them who believe on his name." (John 1:12)
God also chastises and corrects his children: "For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he received." (Hebrews 12:6). Look what the Bible calls those who have not received Jesus Christ: "But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards and not sons." (Hebrews 12:8--the continuation and contrast to :6).
Bastards.
Some may even be sons of Satan, but these are those who are not able to be saved, reprobate. In John 8:41ff Jesus calls these Jewish blasphemers "Ye are of your father the devil..." (:44). This same incident is described in a parallel passage in Mark 3:22ff. These Jews in fact were blaspheming against the Holy Ghost (attributing his power to an unclean spirit instead of the Holy Ghost), an unforgivable sin.
For those who are unsaved the wrath of God is on them at this very moment: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him." (John 3:36).
I implore you to look for yourselves – the majority are not always right. Immortality is a gift of God. Your unbelieving loved ones who have died are not rotting in hell – they have not been granted immortality. Remember – death and hell will be thrown into the lake of fire. Study to show yourselves approved – the truth will set you free!
You contradict the Bible. You are also haven't read far enough. You quote part of Revelation 20:14. Here is the full verse:
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast in to the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:14,15)The lake of fire is the second death. And eight verses further we find:
But the fearful and the unbelieving, and the abmoniable, and murderers and whoremongers and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone which is the second death (Revelation 21:8)This is what happens to those who do not OVERCOME (believe on the Lord Jesus Christ -- see 1 John 5:4). This is eternal torment/destruction and not annihilation as some teach. We know this because the Bible says it is eternal, lasts forever and ever.
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (Revelation 20:10)The beast and false prophet (men) were cast into the lake of fire 1000 years before in Revelation 19:20 and were not "burned up/annihilated" as some teach. The same never ending torment and destruction will happen to all unbelievers.
But those who do overcome the world by their faith "shall inherit all things: and I will be his God, and he shall be my son" (Jesus Christ speaking in Revelation 21:7).
Your argument presumes a definition of death, which isn’t entailed by Scripture.
A better position is to identify death as a state of existence involving separation.
When he suffered the first death, his soul was separated from his body. With Adam, all men suffered a separation of their human spirit from fellowship with God’s Spirit.
When we become believers through faith in Christ, God provides us a regenerated human spirit with our body and soul, giving us spiritual perception in faith which is His work.
The soul continues to exist after the body physically dies, and the body continues to exist, although then separated from the soul and spirit.
It’s interesting to read how Obama identifies sin as when he fails to identify with himself, rather than missing the mark of God’s Plan. Ultimately, Obama is placing himself before God and arrogantly perceives sin as when he fails to remain faithful to himself.
True. And a big surprise - not!!
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