4 Truths About Hell Is the doctrine of hell incompatible with the way of Jesus Christ?

The Aquila Report ^ | 4-6-13 | Tom Ascol

[ReformationFan]

Believing the truth about hell also motivates us to persuade people to be reconciled to God. By God’s grace those of us who are trusting Christ have been rescued from this horrible destiny. How can we love people and refuse to speak plainly to them about the realities of eternal damnation and God’s gracious provision of salvation? Clearer visions of hell will give us greater love for both God and people.

“There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell.” So wrote the agnostic British philosopher Bertrand Russell in 1967. The idea of eternal punishment for sin, he further notes, is “a doctrine that put cruelty in the world and gave the world generations of cruel torture.”

His views are at least more consistent than religious philosopher John Hick, who refers to hell as a “grim fantasy” that is not only “morally revolting” but also “a serious perversion of the Christian Gospel.” Worse yet was theologian Clark Pinnock who, despite having regarded himself as an evangelical, dismissed hell with a rhetorical question: “How can one imagine for a moment that the God who gave His Son to die for sinners because of His great love for them would install a torture chamber somewhere in the new creation in order to subject those who reject Him to everlasting pain?”

So, what should we think of hell? Is the idea of it really responsible for all the cruelty and torture in the world? Is the doctrine of hell incompatible with the way of Jesus Christ? Hardly. In fact, the most prolific teacher of hell in the Bible is Jesus, and He spoke more about it than He did about heaven.

[American Constitutionalist]

Typo corrections,

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

[American Constitutionalist]

Typo correction : Before someone says “ yeah, but it warns those who are walking in the flesh “ ....

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Certain people are simply damned no matter what they do. You know that. St. Augustine says that, John Calvin says that, the bible says that. Very few-according to Jesus-are going to heaven. You had better worry about your odds of getting there as the probability of going to heaven is very low.(The meaning of Christs own words).How can you be sure your belief is sufficient as not everyone saying Lord! Lord! is going to enter heaven.

When read closely Christianity is not a happy religion. It worships and advocates pain, agony, suffering, cuts, bruises, beatings. burnings, misery, disease, hunger,cruel and vicious deaths with eternal suffering thereafter.

[American Constitutionalist]

The problem is with some people is that they are not aware, or refuse to see their true spiritual condition before God because they have been blinded the the god of this world and age because of religion, i.e. their good deeds will win God over and he will let them into heaven, or their efforts of keeping the law will win God over to let them into heaven.

They think ? by them keeping the law that they are A OK with God and are safe, and that could not be any father than from the truth... why do you think it's called the truth of the Gosple ? because the bible and the law tells us that we are ALL ( ALL HAVE SINNED AND HAVE COME SHORT TO THE GLORY OF GOD ) have sinned, all are sinners before God, including those who are trying to keep the law...

There is only one way to GOD, one way of Salvation...

There is no other name under heaven or earth that man can be saved...... that name and person is Jesus Christ and his blood atonement..... nothing else will do.

[Mr Rogers]

My guess is that hell will be like Detroit: what you have when all the nice folks are gone.

[dfwgator]

My guess is that hell will be like Detroit

Without the Red Wings (but with the Lions)

[steve86]

As a Catholic I have researched this on occasion. This is an entry on another forum that I found to be quite useful:

Depends.
Catholics believe suicide when committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent is a complete separation from God (a mortal sin) and send a person to hell.
There are 3 conditions for a mortal sin: grave matter, full knowledge and deliberate consent.
While the suicide (or any kind of murder) is always a serious issue, people who commit suicide do not always have full knowledge of what they are doing. Definitely, drugs can affect thinking, like other things, such as diseases, intense pain or anguish.
Therefore, suicide is not automatically treated as a mortal sin.
We are commanded by Christ not to judge others by what they leave final decision to God who alone knows the heart of every person.
The Code of Canon Law does not list suicide as a reason for denying a person a Catholic funeral and burial in a Catholic cemetery. http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__…http://www.holycrosscemeteries.com/faq/ # … Http://home.att.net/ ~ faithleap / suicide.h …
For more information, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
Mortal sin, paragraphs 1857-1859: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3s …
Suicide paragraphs 2282-2283: http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt3s …

[American Constitutionalist]

To make it more easy to understand...

Simply put,

Before Christ came, it was , yes, ALL of our sins before a holy God...

Now ? It's both the rejection of God's plan of Salvation in Christ and ALL of our sins before a holy God.

Remember ?

God's condemnation is still in effect, God's law still condenms people of their sins, until they come to him in Christ...
Once a person is saved, i.e. born again, brought back from being spiritually dead ?
God says that he will remember our sins no more.
Christ died, ONCE and FOR ALL, meaning, he died once and for all time.. no more need to go back and do it again.
Christ died for each and very sinner, once and for all time, all of their sins, past, present, and future sins.
For God transends time, for he is eternal.

[American Constitutionalist]

" In the South before World War II, especially black preachers made their reputations on their elaborate and frightening descriptions of Hell. It was said that a truly gifted preacher could make a congregation “smell brimstone, and feel the fire licking the floorboards beneath their feet.”

The hellfire and brimestone is more a message to the lost than the already saved.
However ? the GOOD NEWS of the gosple of Christ should be also a part of that message, people need to know why they need Christ.
Should not preach a message of hopelessness and not give them any hope.

[Sir_Ed]

What about unrepentant sinners like that abortionist who was murdered, who turned out to be a deacon in some church, yet was personally responsible for the murders of thousands of babies over many years’ practice as an abortionist?

Do you think God greeted him with open arms, saying “Well done, though good and faithful servant!”?

[American Constitutionalist]

When I was first saved I was a very judgemental person and christian and was in a short of legalistic church.

However ?
God had to humble me.

I use to be one of those, " if you sin and not keep God's law, your going to HELL HELL HELL I TELL YA " with no grace, or message of hope.

I am learning more and more of grace and about grace.
For Grace and Truth came by Jesus Christ.
Can't separate the both.
and ? is a conjuntionary word.
and , but, or.

conjuntion, conjuntion what's your funktion.

[American Constitutionalist]

BINGO DINGO RINGO BABY !

[ScubieNuc]

I agree with you. Hell is real and there is real punishment in Hell right now, but at the Great White Throne Judgement talked about in Revelation, Death, Hell and all that are in Hell are judged then destroyed in the Lake of Fire (ie, the “second death” or the death of the soul).

One verse that really makes this more understandable is in 1 Corinthians 15:54 where it talks about “this mortal taking on immortality.” A person doesn’t take on immortality until they accept Christ as savior. This immortality isn’t a physical immortality but the immortality of the soul. In order for a person to be tortured forever and ever (as many have been falsely lead to believe) you would have to have an immortal soul but only the saved have an immortal soul.

[ScubieNuc]

No.

[ScubieNuc]

Actually that makes complete sense. Suppose the Lake of Fire is the sun and while all of us save are in Heaven or in the New Jerusalem we look at the sun as a reminder of the consequences of sin and be thankful as opposed to looking at the sun and knowing that loved ones and others are there suffering forever and ever and ever. I certainly couldn’t enjoy Heaven knowing that.

Think about this, the wages of sin is death and Christ suffered that, but only for a brief time, However is the wages of sin is eternal torment, then Christ didn’t suffer that or pay that price.

No, the Bible isn’t as complicated as some people want to make it. Just like John 3:16 says there is eternal life with Christ but without him there is death. What is death? The ENDING of life. Revelation talks about the second death and that is the ending of the existance, the life of the souls of the unbelievers.

The ONLY ones who may suffer forever and ever as spoken of in Revelation is Satan, the anti-christ, and the false prophet, but that is probably because they have a demonic soul.

[American Constitutionalist]

BINGO DINGO RINGO BABY !

The thing is ?

Israel didn't see it, at least the majority didn't because they were blinded by the prince, the god of this world.
The so called " religious leaders " i.e THE LAW preachers, didn't see it, for they too where blinded by the prince, or god of this world.

They cricified Christ, God's grace.

and so to ?

Today ?

They ( the religious folks, the LAW preachers ) still crucify Christ and God's preachers of his grace.

They, the religious folks, the LAW preachers crucify Christ all over again and again and bring Christ to a open shame.

They, the religous folks, the LAW prachers, they stomp, trample, downtrod the blood of Christ counting it as the same as the blood of bulls and goats.

But, they face a fearful expectation for doing that of a all consuming fire God.

[Ol' Dan Tucker]

God is not the forgiver, Jesus is.

This isn't what Jesus said at all:

Matthew 6:14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

15 But if ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Nor is what is said by the Apostles.

Hebrews 10:16 This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them;

17 And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more.

If you view God as an omnipotent, generally detached entity and Jesus as being one that understands and cares for man, then it starts to make more sense.

Again, this is not what Jesus said:

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

[TheZMan]

I understand that. I’m trying to make sense of something that we otherwise cannot truly understand.

[right way right]

As a Christian I suffer because I have rebellious ways, but God brings
me back and I am blessed because of Him.
I cannot image how bad eternal separation would be.
In Gods creation every action (force) has an opposite
reaction.
Good verses bad. I’ll take the good.

I plead Christ crucified. Thank you LORD.

[Chasaway]

"Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God"...Jonathan Edwards.

Here.

That's a scary sermon...

The story goes that so powerful were the words (not so much Edwards' delivery itself) that Edwards was interrupted several times by folks in the congregation desiring to be saved immediately.