God's truth about hell

[Checkpoint]

This thread stems from this short beginning exchange about hell and truth:


Checkpoint wrote:

Hi again, Pinseeker.

What is it that makes them "truths" rather than "untruths", as you see them, in brief ?

What specifically makes them "very hard truths", do you think?

Pinseeker wrote

Hey, Checkpoint.

I guess the only way to answer the first question is, if God says it, it's true.

To the second, I would say "very hard truths" does not mean "very difficult-to-undertand truths." What I mean is, many people do not want to hear about hell, and/or do not want to accept God's truth about hell. It scares them, it offends them, it's obcene to them... etc. Even believers like me just... well, I shudder at it. It... well, it scares the H-E-double-toothpick out of me. But it's important, even vital to our understanding of the Gospel. Take a look at this if you want:

https://www.ligonier.org/learn/series/hell/[/quote]

Checkpoint responded

Ah yes Pinseeker, what you say here raises questions rather than gives answers, in my opinion.

1) Do we really grasp what "God's truth about hell" actually is?

2) In what way is it "important, even vital, to our understanding of the Gospel"?

3) Why is there such strong, even visceral, reaction to "God's truth about hell", so often expressed by both believers and unbelievers?

4) Who, or what, is being questioned here? God, or the Bible, or an interpretation?

Please discuss, debate, and/or give your answer to any of these questions, or just comment or make an observation.

[PinSeeker]

I gave you this one last time:

"And Isaiah 47:14, "Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up".

Sure. And I said again that the figurative fire spoken of -- the lake of fire is metaphorical (in your own words), right? -- is God's unending judgment, pronounced final at the Judgment and remaining in place forever.

Again, whether those that reside there continue to sin or not is irrelevant.

On the contrary, it is very relevant, because in your scenario it is quite obvious and quite damaging.

All I'm saying by "irrelevant" is that whether they continue to sin in hell or not is inconsequential, because God's Final Judgment has been rendered and is permanent and irreversible.

"Gnashing of teeth" is something God will imprison sinful man to live with for eternity, and God Himself will indulge this situation for all time?

"Indulge this situation"? If you mean satisfying and upholding His own perfect justice and not compromising it in any way, then yes. Hey, we read in Isaiah (chapter 53) that it pleased God to "crush" the Lord Jesus and "put Him to grief." It was the Father's will to do so. This is God's justice, which is part of His glory.

The mind boggles, the spirit reacts and firmly rejects any such notion.

I agree. Yes, so my advice -- to anyone -- is to stop leaning on one's own understanding and listen to the Holy Spirit rather than his/her own spirit.

Grace and peace to all.

[Checkpoint]

No, hell is not a real place where the dead will be sent to a destination where they will self-torment for eternity, which you say is what they have chosen.

Yes, hell is a real place where the dead will be sent for eternity. In this place, they will forever regret -- to put it mildly -- being wise in their own eyes and choosing themselves rather than God and His offer of salvation, walking according to His statutes, and glorifying Him. It will be a perpetual anguish and torment for them, and surely not voluntary.

Such is your misshapen opinion.

They will be raised to mortal life(as Lazarus was) to hear and react to their own negative verdict of the Second Death, the killing of their soul, their very being and existence. That will then be administered, leaving their carcass to be dealt with in the metaphorical Gehenna/lake of fire.

Such is your misshapen opinion.

What Jesus said is never opinion, let alone a misshapen one.

Grace and peace to you, Checkpoint.

Thanks Pinseeker, to you too.

[PinSeeker]

Such is your misshapen opinion.

You're welcome to your opinion.

What Jesus said is never opinion, let alone a misshapen one.

I never said otherwise.

Jesus never said or insinuated that unbelievers "...will be raised to mortal life (as Lazarus was) to hear and react to their own negative verdict of the Second Death, the killing of their soul, their very being and existence... That will then be administered, leaving their carcass to be dealt with in the metaphorical Gehenna/lake of fire." That is all your opinion. And misshapen it is.

Grace and peace.

[Checkpoint]

I gave you this one last time:

"And Isaiah 47:14, "Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up".

Sure. And I said again that the figurative fire spoken of -- the lake of fire is metaphorical (in your own words), right? -- is God's unending judgment, pronounced final at the Judgment and remaining in place forever.

The lake of fire is the figurative depiction of the literal Second Death, which extinguishes the life, the existence, of those so judged, forever.

Again, whether those that reside there continue to sin or not is irrelevant.

On the contrary, it is very relevant, because in your scenario it is quite obvious and quite damaging.

All I'm saying by "irrelevant" is that whether they continue to sin in hell or not is inconsequential, because God's Final Judgment has been rendered and is permanent and irreversible.

And I am saying your scenario has such obvious flaws it is quite a damaging portrayal of the God we worship.

Of the one true God,who is love, who foreknew all, who planned all, and who is full of glory and the epitome of justice.


"

Gnashing of teeth" is something God will imprison sinful man to live with for eternity, and God Himself will indulge this situation for all time?

"Indulge this situation"? If you mean satisfying and upholding His own perfect justice and not compromising it in any way, then yes. Hey, we read in Isaiah (chapter 53) that it pleased God to "crush" the Lord Jesus and "put Him to grief." It was the Father's will to do so. This is God's justice, which is part of His glory.

No, I don't mean anything like that at all. It is not God's justice, or to His glory.

It misrepresents who He is and what He has done and will do.

The mind boggles, the spirit reacts and firmly rejects any such notion.

I agree. Yes, so my advice -- to anyone -- is to stop leaning on one's own understanding and listen to the Holy Spirit rather than his/her own spirit.

Good advice -- to anyone. How well do any of us apply it?

Grace and peace to all.

And to you, Pinseeker.

[PinSeeker]

The lake of fire is the figurative depiction of the literal Second Death, which extinguishes the life, the existence, of those so judged, forever.

No, the lake of fire is the figurative depiction of the place where those who suffer the Second Death are sent, or thrown into, as it were. In this place they are forever under the Final Judgment of the Lord.

All I'm saying by "irrelevant" is that whether they continue to sin in hell or not is inconsequential, because God's Final Judgment has been rendered and is permanent and irreversible.

And I am saying your scenario has such obvious flaws it is quite a damaging portrayal of the God we worship. Of the one true God, who is love, who foreknew all, who planned all, and who is full of glory and the epitome of justice.

Well, I'm glad to know that you think very highly of God's justice. But that doesn't change the fact that you inadvertently soft-pedal it, thereby not realizing the full weight of His glory. And we come back around to thing you and myth-one (and possibly others) don't seem to want to try to understand, that God is not somehow "lacking" in love by pronouncing eternal judgment on some. Rather, it is because His love is so great -- because He is love -- that His judgment is executed. My "scenario" is not my scenario at all; it's what He has said in His infallible, inerrant, incontrovertible, Holy Word.

It is not God's justice, or to His glory. It misrepresents who He is and what He has done and will do.

And this is your opinion. I understand.

The mind boggles, the spirit reacts and firmly rejects any such notion.

I agree. Yes, so my advice -- to anyone -- is to stop leaning on one's own understanding and listen to the Holy Spirit rather than his/her own spirit.

Good advice -- to anyone. How well do any of us apply it?

That's a good question.

Grace and peace to all.[/quote][/quote]

[Checkpoint]

[Replying to post 98 by PinSeeker]

I will say this, finally:

People often feel that hell is some great blemish on God’s love. The Bible presents it as the opposite. Hell magnifies for us the love of God by showing us how far God went, and how much He went through, to save us.

He went through what, to save us from what?

Both answers are the same. Neither of them are "hell".

The Lord make His face to shine on you.

[myth-one.com]

God created man in Their image, in Their likeness (Genesis 1:26). This very fact eliminates the possibility of ceasing to exist (among other things). Since this is true, from the point of existence on, the question regarding eternity for every man or woman born is whether he or she will exist eternally in life (in God's glory, in His marvelous light) or in death (not in God's glory, in outer darkness).

Not true!

After Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God's commandment to not eat from the tree of knowledge, God is quoted as saying the following:

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (Genesis 3:22-23)

So man was not created with everlasting life as you claim.

Man was created in God's image, but without knowledge of good and evil or everlasting life!

[Checkpoint]

[Replying to post 101 by myth-one.com]

From myth-one.com to Pinseeker:

You have stated previously that all mankind will exist forever after having been created.

Since you grant everlasting existence to all mankind, you are forced into believing that nonbelievers will be tormented eternally.

So the root cause of your false belief that nonbelievers will be tormented forever, is your original false belief in mankind's immortality.

The wages of sin as defined in the scriptures is death.

But you cannot possibly accept that biblical truth as you "know" that all mankind has an everlasting existence and cannot die.

Yes, something like that.

No, nothing like that, in any shape, form, or fashion.

A wrong starting point automatically leads in the wrong direction.

This I agree with. This is what I've been telling you both for some time now. You would do well to heed this advice.

...along the way another yarn is spun, that death does not mean death., but life in another place, forever.

Physical death and spiritual death are two very different things in the Bible.

God created man in Their image, in Their likeness (Genesis 1:26). This very fact eliminates the possibility of ceasing to exist (among other things). Since this is true, from the point of existence on, the question regarding eternity for every man or woman born is whether he or she will exist eternally in life (in God's glory, in His marvelous light) or in death (not in God's glory, in outer darkness).

Annihilationism is totally antithetical to Scripture and is a heresy.

Labels and claims mean nothing as such, but must be tested to see how much or how little they are supported by what God actually says and intends.

You have clearly stated that your starting point is the creation of man, which is also our starting point.

Yet it is right here that the two schools of thought diverge.

You have chosen being made in the image and likeness of God. The specifics of which are never defined as including this and excluding that.

We have chosen the descriptions given relating to the actual creation of man. To us it is the soundest base to grasp the later verses explaining the effect sin had on that and the way God chose to deal with it, together with the promises He made as to our future life, or its lack.

Grace and peace to you.

To you also.

[PinSeeker]

God created man in Their image, in Their likeness (Genesis 1:26). This very fact eliminates the possibility of ceasing to exist (among other things). Since this is true, from the point of existence on, the question regarding eternity for every man or woman born is whether he or she will exist eternally in life (in God's glory, in His marvelous light) or in death (not in God's glory, in outer darkness).

Not true!

After Adam and Eve sinned by disobeying God's commandment to not eat from the tree of knowledge, God is quoted as saying the following:

And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. (Genesis 3:22-23)

So man was not created with everlasting life as you claim.

Man was created in God's image, but without knowledge of good and evil or everlasting life!

At the risk of offending you, myth-one, your assertions are Scripturally inaccurate and thus terribly wrong.

From the beginning, God chose to supply life to His people by means of the Tree of Life while they lived in the garden of Eden:

• "And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." [Gen. 2:9]

Now understand that there were many, many trees in Eden, but two -- not one -- in the midst (middle) of it, namely the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. All trees were pleasant to the sight and good for food, but only one bore fruit that God forbade... the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Immortality was the gift to anyone, from Adam and Eve onward, who regularly ate the fruit of the tree (3:22). The Tree of Life was a means of sacramental communication between God and His people. The tree was a physical means of conducting a spiritual transaction -- this is what a sacrament is.

So, as long as Adam and Eve ate of the tree they had life, and they had access to the tree because before sin, before the Fall, they were in a right relationship with God. While they trusted His wisdom and obeyed His command not to eat of the forbidden fruit, our first parents could eat freely of the tree that gives life (2:16–17; 3:22–24). Their trust in God’s promises, signified by their eating of the proper tree and not the forbidden fruit, maintained their place in Eden and consequently, their life.

HOWEVER.... when Eve was deceived by the serpent and Adam chose to disobey God, Adam and Eve fell into sin, and as a result they were barred from eating the Tree of Life (3:24). Cut off from the Lord’s presence and His life-giving tree, their deed plunged themselves and all of us as their children into darkness and death.

So. Again. Yet again. Before the Fall, Adam and Eve (and the rest of the human race) had full -- and unending -- access to the Tree of Life, Access to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, however, was always forbidden. What Eve tells the serpent in Genesis 3:2 verifies these facts for us. And in Genesis 3:22-23, Adam and Eve (and the rest of the human race) had their access to the Tree of Life revoked.

Grace and peace to you both.

[PinSeeker]

What God told Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:17 was that if they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would NO LONGER be immortal, that they would NO LONGER have access to the tree of life, that they would die in that very day (spiritually), that their days on the earth would be numbered... limited (physically).

And we know the rest of the story. God did exactly what He said He would do if they disobeyed Him in Genesis 3:22-24. Adam and Eve died spiritually, and they became subject to physical death. And the same is true of us, their progeny.

Grace and peace to you both.