Posted on 03/05/2011 11:00:45 PM PST by OrthodoxKirkPresbyterian
A new book by one of the country’s most influential evangelical pastors, challenging traditional Christian views of heaven, hell and eternal damnation, has created an uproar among evangelical leaders
In a book to be published this month, the pastor, Rob Bell, known for his provocative views and appeal among the young, describes as “misguided and toxic” the dogma that “a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
There Bible says they really aren't. There are none good....not one, according to Isaiah and Paul. When one reads the standard set in the Sermon on the Mount it becomes apparent that nobody has ever obeyed God's will for even a day of their life. Ecclesiastes merely says the worldly life "comes to an end", yet ackknowledges sheol and anguishes over the fact he, nor anyone else, knows what happens after death. I see nothing in scripture to support the doctrine of annihilationism. It's merely wishful thinking on the part of the unregenerate.
Enjoy your certainty, I will live in my faith. I really do wish you well.
You’re right. OT Hell is Sheol, which is nearly Hades, and simply a holding place for the dead distinguishing between the righteous and the unrighteous dead.
Hades is the word used in the NT as well. Hades or Gehenna is simply translated as Hell. The other word for Hell in the NT occurs in 2 Peter 2:4 and is the word Tartarus.
The words are chosen carefully, but as this thread proves most often misinterpreted by the eisegeiss of the reader.
Look here for more info: http://topicalbible.org/h/hell.htm
Hell as presented in the contexts of respondents to this thread isn’t reconcilable with Biblical teachings on salvation, the Atonement or the nature of God. At each point a Biblical truth conflicts with their definition and gets ignored.
a holding place? That is what the RCC calls purgatory and is biblically unsound teaching.
Calvin, the first Christian.(/sarc)
OK, prove it.
It reads to me as though those who assert only a 5 point Calvinism is valid have only thought through one or 2 combinations of some 120 different permutations of the truth values of the 5 points.
Scripture by chapter and verse does not explicitly state limited atonement, but limited atonement is a conclusion drawn from reasoning a handful of Scriptures, while not introducing others. The argument for it may be better than that of double predestination, but neither is singularily Scriptural.
For these reasons I place it in His hands. If He wanted to provide unlimited atonement, who am I to deny He hasn’t paid for all sin?
BTW, even with unlimited atonement, don’t be fooled into thinking those who reject Him, don’t naturally become so heinous that the only feasible solution in the eternal state is not indeed condemnation to the Lake of Fire.
His Work is not good for nothingness.
If you reject limited atonement, then total depravity will be rejected by you, Unconditional election is then a lie in the eyes of a person rejecting TULIP. There is no in-between path, it is either Geneva or the errors of Rome.
That's what you need to prove. You can believe what you like and I am not interested in arguing for arguing's sake, but if you assert that the Bible rejects a holding place for the dead then you'll have to prove it and support that contention using scripture. It is exactly the opposite and scripture strongly and clearly supports a holding place for the dead.
Scripture tells us that we will be judged immediately after death, which is why Jesus told the thief that today you will be with me in heaven
Then why will Jesus come to judge the quick and the dead? Do you reject the Apostle's Creed?
Furthermore, Jesus didn't tell the criminal (we don't know if he's a thief or not) that he'd be with him in heaven. Jesus categorically didn't use the word heaven and did so for a purpose.
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:8, "We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord."
If you believe in some in-between place, you believe that your works help you get out of it, and it leads to a lot of errors as we see in the RCC
>>It does say hell is place where the fire is NEVER quenched and the worm NEVER dies. “NEVER” sure sounds like time unending to me.<<
The bible, when it comes to describing eternity, is a bit like a man trying to explain “red” to a person that only sees in grayscale. Our understanding is limited.
Also, although a slaughterhouse can exist for a LONG time, as for each animal butchered there, it is a fairly short process.
But if one was only there for a short time, why does the Bible got to pains the emphasize the eternity of Hell itself. Such eternity wouldn’t matter if one was only there a short time. No, the eternity of existence in hell for those who go there is well established by scripture.
Go back and review the meaning of total depravity. We are all condemned prior to being reborn. None of us are reborn with a regenerated human spirit until we accept faith in Him. Yes, every man prior to being reborn is totally depraved, requiring a regenerated human spirit, which is only possible by an act of God, not by anything we can do. This is totally consistent with the doctrine of substitutionary unlimited atonement.
Go back and review the meaning of total depravity. We are all condemned prior to being reborn. None of us are reborn with a regenerated human spirit until we accept faith in Him.
Yes, every man prior to being reborn is totally depraved, requiring a regenerated human spirit, which is only possible by an act of God, not by anything we can do. This is totally consistent with the doctrine of substitutionary unlimited atonement.
There is that narrow path which some from Geneva and some from Rome have been able to follow, as well as a large number of other believers.
The proof is in the pudding. I always want to chuckle a little bit when somebody attempts to argue salvation and regeneration of the human spirit with a believer relying upon theological arguments and ignoring the reality of the Christian way of life.
It's spiritual walk. It's very real. It is a different perception than the physical or the soulish intellect. His Word is the only source I have found which accurately describes it with veracity. It also provides guidance on how we are able to continue to walk with Him, and how we come to understand a sense of destiny through Him. One of the greatest discoveries is how to live as He has planned for our individual and collective lives as members of His body.
Those from Rome are not saved, full stop.
mark for later
I understand that although people see sin as relative (which is why not everyone is in prison), God doesn’t. It’s black and white. It is a sin or it’s not a sin.
>>I see nothing in scripture to support the doctrine of annihilationism.<<
I think we see what we want to see. You know how people missinterpret “the love of money is the root of all evil” to say “money is the root of all evil.”? Well I think we do a lot of that regarding hell, what it is, how long it lasts, and how long anyone sent there will “suffer pain”.
Again, I use this analogy because it is similar to a lot of the wording in the bible regarding the afterdeath (as opposed to afterlife). If I say I am going to paint a fence blue for all eternity, do I mean that for all eternity I will be painting, or does it mean I will paint it once and it will STAY BLUE for all eternity?
The article I linked to does a VERY good job of defending the case that people who are not written in the book of life in essence simply cease to exist. It seems to compliment Ecclesiastes as well. Those people simply lead out their life and, at the second death, are annihilated much as animals are at their first and only death.
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