I disagree with the RC position that people burn forever. Their natural state, once they’ve been judged, will be non-existence. Hellfire was made for angels, not man.
However, hell will be used to judge them. They will see how and why they put themselves outside of God’s grace and forgiveness.
I totally stand against Pope Francis in his position that hell is not real. He is explicitly denying Scripture on that point.
Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: (Matthew 25:41)
See post above, May God grant you “repentance to the acknowledging of the truth.” (2 Timothy 2:25)
Death and Hell are both thrown into the Lake of Fire. The Lake of Fire was made for Satan and his Angels and it burns in the presence of Christ and the angels according to Revelation.
Daniel 12:2 And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
You are wrong about the final extinction of a sinner. For Daniel 12:2 to support your view it would have to state that those consigned to the lake of Fire would be eternally extinguished, and there-fore having no consciousness of shame and everlasting contempt. God takes no personal pleasure in the death of the wicked. Mark 9:44 speaks of those whose “worm dieth not in the eternal flames” No it is not a literal worm but an everlasting self awareness filled with guilt and regret at having rejected Christ.
You push Armstrongism who wrote reams and reams about how the sinners will simply be annihilated in hell and never rise again nor have any external consciousness ignoring many passages of disproving scripture. Each person not resurrected in the first resurrection will be given a chance to see if his name is found in the book of life. Many men and women through out time have died without hearing the gospel but yet may have groped in darkeness and responded to some of God’s light. Many indeed will be flicked into the Lake of Fire but I believe there will be quite a few surprises with many saved by the skin of their teeth. That is why there is a final judgment, God desires that no man perish but have everlasting life. Many see only the negative in this final judgment assuming that there will be no further names found there that weren’t already there in the first resurrection of souls under Jesus Christ as well as any saved during the millenial reign of Jesus. Oh yes, Revelation speaks of numbers of people existing at the end of the millenium as being as the sands of the seashore. They too will be judged as to whether their names will be found. in the ls Book of Life.
Many will be thrown into the Lake of Fire but since God is judging, we will have to allow for surprises and reprieves that only God will reveal.
God is also the God of the living and he exists past, present and future all at once. Any soul that has had any existence at all will in one sense of time, always be eternally existent. God could crush a soul/spirit out of a present and future existence but such a soul is still existent in Gods permanent presence past, which is the past sense from where we humans presently operate in linear time.(Christ: Before Abraham...I AM).
Souls were made to exist eternally with God...even sent to Hell they just don’t go away. Once a soul comes into being, it can never again be said of that soul “that it had never existed” Even if God destroyed such a soul across all times right to the womb, it still had an existence before its destruction.
Every lost soul to God was and is and will be felt in that serpent’s bite in Christ’s heel! God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked because that soul is lost forever to God’s presence; the Lake of Fire is the only binding and everlasting tourniquet of experience with a body fitted to destruction, that such a soul could ever receive from God! It is God’s final mercy for the soul that would not let God do anything else for it.
Matthew 25:
The Final Judgment31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.
32 Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.
33 And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?
38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you?
39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’
40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’
46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”