Posted on 02/24/2014 5:17:08 PM PST by SoFloFreeper
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930), the Scottish physician and author best known for his creation of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, once wrote, “Hell, I may say … has long dropped out of the thoughts of every reasonable man.” He would get a lot of support for that statement today, and not only from those outside of the Christian church. The idea that untold billions of human beings, including many who would have seemed decent, law-abiding citizens, will spend eternity exposed to God’s unrelenting anger, is simply unacceptable to many people. Even some holding high ecclesiastical office have rejected the idea. John Robinson (1919–1983) the liberal bishop of Woolwich, whose book Honest to God reduced the Creator to “the Ground of Being,” said of the idea, “[God] cannot endure that … and he will not.”
By far the most persistent attack on hell comes in the form of a question: how can a God of love send anyone to hell? The British philosopher and theologian John Hick (1922–2012) argued that hell was “totally incompatible with the idea of God as infinite love.” The argument here is perfectly straightforward: sending people to hell is not a loving thing to do, so a God of love could never do it. How do we answer that?
God’s love is beyond question, and 1 John 4:8 (“God is love”) confirms that love is an integral part of His very essence. Yet to isolate one of His attributes as a way of demolishing hell leaves us with a lopsided caricature of God. In fact, the dominant biblical attribute of God is not His love but His holiness; He is called by His “holy name” more than all other descriptions taken together. He has zero tolerance for sin. He is “of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (Hab. 1:13), a fundamental fact utterly ignored by today’s permissive society. The question hell’s undertakers should be asking is, how can a God of holiness allow anyone into heaven? As “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) and as “nothing unclean will ever enter [heaven]” (Rev. 21:27), they face a difficult task.
There is a sense in which God sends nobody to hell, but that people send themselves there. God has revealed “his eternal power and divine nature … ever since the creation of the world” and all who reject this revelation are “without excuse” (Rom. 1:20). There is no law forbidding people to acknowledge God’s existence, power, holiness, love, and goodness, or to live in ways that “honor him as God” (v. 21). People have an option—and countless millions opt out of giving God His rightful place, not realizing that in doing so they are “storing up wrath” for the day “when God’s righteous judgement will be revealed” (2:5). J.I. Packer pinpoints this tragic truth: “Nobody stands under the wrath of God save those who have chosen to do so. The essence of God’s action in wrath is to give men what they choose, in all its implications; nothing more, and equally nothing less.” C.S. Lewis adds the chilling comment, “I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside.”
Others reject the biblical picture of hell by saying that though God hates sin, He loves the sinner, and so could never condemn anyone to eternal punishment. But is this the case? I have traced thirty-three places in Scripture where God’s hatred is expressed. In twelve He is said to hate sinners’ actions (including the practice of false religion) but in the other twenty-one instances He is said to hate the sinner. One example covers all the others: we are told that “[God’s] soul hates the wicked” (Ps. 11:5).
Although God shows His love by pouring out His common grace on all people—“He makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust” (Matt. 5:45)—we dare not confuse this with the saving grace that enables sinners to see their desperate danger and to turn to God in repentance and faith. Those who see God’s love as eliminating hell are ignoring God’s justice and the fundamental fact that He “will by no means clear the guilty” (Ex. 34:7). As Packer says, “It is not possible to argue that a God who is love cannot also be a God who condemns and punishes the disobedient.”
Many reject biblical teaching on hell by claiming that condemning all unforgiven sinners to eternal punishment in hell violates the principle that a penalty should always fit the crime. How, they ask, can God punish a mere earthly lifetime of sin with suffering that lasts forever? Surely those who lead reasonably respectable lives will not be treated in the same way as mass murderers, rapists, child abusers, and the like? Both questions have straightforward answers. In the first case, time spent committing a crime is usually irrelevant in determining the sentence. For example, a violent, life-threatening assault may be over in less than a minute, but would less than a minute in jail be the right sentence for such a crime? In the second case, there are no “little sins,” because there is no little God to sin against.
The decisive issues are the nature of God and the nature of the sin, and every sin, without exception, is an offense against the majesty and authority of our Creator. What is more, even a highly respectable person has broken what Jesus called the most important of God’s commandments—“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30)—and is therefore guilty of committing the greatest sin. The Bible makes it clear that there are degrees of punishment in hell—Jesus spoke of those who would receive “the greater condemnation” (Mark 12:40)—but no “respectable” sinner can take any comfort from this. Man’s failure to give to God “the glory due his name” (Ps. 29:2) is an infinite evil deserving infinite punishment, and as in hell there is no opportunity or inclination to repent, God’s justice requires that it go on forever.
Yet another attempt to tweak the Bible’s teaching on hell is the suggestion that when the Bible speaks of eternal punishment, it is the punishment that lasts forever, not the punishing; there comes a point at which God, in effect, says, “Enough is enough,” and ends the punishment by annihilating the sinner. But if annihilation is the goal of the suffering, what is the purpose of the suffering? This kind of scenario would condemn God as the supreme sadist. The suggestion also runs headlong into the Bible’s clear teaching that those in hell “have no rest day or night” (Rev. 14:11). In his book The Fire That Consumes, the Adventist author Edward Fudge comes to the curious conclusion that although the wicked “are not guaranteed rest during the day” and have “no certain hope that relief will come at night,” this “does not say within itself that the suffering lasts all day and all night.” This sounds suspiciously like special pleading, to say the least.
All other ways of trying to limit the duration of hell collide with the simple fact that in a single breath Jesus spoke of those who “will go away into eternal punishment” while the righteous will go into “eternal life.” In both cases “eternal” translates the identical Greek word—aiōnios. Why would Jesus use the same word to describe the “punishment” of the lost and the “life” of the saved if He meant that only one would be endless? More than fifteen hundred years ago, Augustine wrote, “To say that the life eternal shall be endless [but that] punishment eternal shall come to an end is the height of absurdity.”
Nobody can think properly about the fearful reality of hell (let alone preach on it) and remain emotionally and psychologically unaffected. Yet hell is good news. It confirms that God is eternally sovereign, and that He has the last word about human destiny. It vindicates God’s character, showing that He is utterly holy and just. It guards the new creation against the possibility of ever again being invaded by Satan or infected by sin, and ensures that the “new heavens and a new earth” will be a home “where righteousness dwells” (2 Peter 3:13) and where God’s redeemed family will live in His glorious presence forever. It assures all the redeemed that in glory “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).
It could even be said that the Bible’s teaching on hell is good news for unconverted people. It alerts them to their appalling danger, and, in countless cases, leads sinners to seek the Savior and to find Him as He “who delivers us from the wrath to come” (1 Thess. 1:10).
LOL. I argue that hell cannot be infinite, because God's love is infinite, and I "seem to have a very negative view on heaven and the afterlife"? And that is "starting from a negative frame of reference focused on punishment and never-ending judgment"? WTF? My entire position is exactly opposite of what you are talking about - specifically opposite.
LOL, whatever. Have your fun. After all, it's not like there are any spiritual reprecusions to creating FUD around God's love, right?
Go for it.
Let’s talk about infinite.
You are fixated about “infinite”. Infinite love.
God is a perfect person. As God He is infinite. In just about any way we would attempt to measure Him. Basically that’s why the term applies to Him in about all things, as He is immeasurable in so many ways. Love. Patience. Endurance. Mercy. Grace. Forgiveness. Strength. Power. Intelligence. Creating things out of nothing. Creating things that will live on forever from their point of existence. Self replicating life forms. Etc. The perfection of universal physical laws He devised the universe to work under. Infinite knowledge. Infinite existence across time, existing outside of time as He created time/space. Not bound by time and space. Not bound by His creation. Infinite wisdom. Infinite ability to sustain everything He made perfectly.
God is also a God who is perfectly just. Infinitely just. God set forth ONE RULE to Adam and Eve. An infinite God put forth one rule, an infinite rule. Do not do this one thing. A rule devised by an infinite God, is an infinite rule. Absolute. Perfect. Infinite.
Just one rule to live by. They broke that rule by their sinful behavior and breaking God’s infinite law.
When one breaks an infinite law, decreed by an infinite God, what is the logical result?
The logical result of breaking an infinite law is an infinite punishment. An infinite penalty. Breaking an infinite law brings upon the lawbreaker, an infinite penalty.
And God could have left it at that, and kicked them out of the garden and said when you two die, it’s over and you are separated from Me forever.
But He didn’t do that, did He? After an infinite, perfect and just God found His perfect and infinite law was broken, He did pass sentence, but immediately after that, He explained to them He would provide a way for them and their progeny to be able to be with Him, He would provide a Redeemer for them. A kinsmen Redeemer. This is the first reference to the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Christ. God would provide a way for every person to return to Him, if they so desired. The way would be there for everyone. Nobody has a harder time being saved than anyone else, it’s the same thing for everyone. No tougher requirements for some, no extra work for anyone, nobody can claim they earned any part of it. That’s the beauty of His solution. His way of salvation is a gift. You can’t earn it. It’s not possible.
It isn’t possible because a finite being breaking an infinite law, cannot on their own make things right. How does a finite being pay an infinite penalty? The finite being must pay that penalty forever because it’s an infinite penalty.
If God hadn’t provided a way out, a way of salvation and return to Him, I believe you could argue He would not be a loving God. But the solution He provided, HE ALSO PAID FOR by Jesus Christ living a perfect life, and offering that life on the cross for all of us. Scripture says the shedding of blood is required for atonement. Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, living the perfect life, shed His perfect blood voluntarily for all men, so that that if we believed in Him, His atoning, perfect blood sacrifice would satisfy God’s infinite justice, and pay for the infinite penalties of all of us.
The only other way we can pay is we pay our penalty ourselves. And if we don’t accept God’s solution, the one He planned so that we wouldn’t have to pay our infinite penalty ourselves, then He will let us pay it ourselves, forever. But if you don’t think that God is love, by putting forth a plan of salvation for us sinners whereby He Himself wound up paying the penalty for us, so that all we have to do is recognize it, recognize we need it, and accept His gift of salvation sincerely,
then there is nothing God can do to convince you He loves you.
Hell certainly is eternal
Revelation 14:
[9] And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
[10] The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
[11] And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
Those that want to imagine Hell out of existence need to read their Bible wayyy more.
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Amen, Brother!
Satan has been casting doubt on the truth of God’s Word since the garden. That’s his oldest tactic.
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