Marcusart said:
Hi everyone. I know this topic has probably been discussed to death, but I'm having a serious problem understanding it. When I listen to Family Radio or hear evangelicals talk, they always stress how much God loves all of us and how he doesn't want any of us to die unsaved, etc... My problem is, I can't understand how God, who is supposed to be perfect love, could allow someone to go to Hell-- I know it is "our" decision to accept/not accept Christ, and I know we can't understand all the ways and mysteries of God, but Hell is a place of torture. Forever. I don't get it... why not just let unsaved people die like animals, you know, like an "unconscious state" or something.. why is torture in fire forever and ever even part of the equation? I can't equate a perfect God of Love with a being that would allow his creations to suffer like that. I mean, we're not just talking death, we're talking *torture*, worse torture and longer torture than anything humankind could ever come up with or even imagine.. Please help me understand why the Creator who loves us would do that to us.. I know Hell is a "separation from God", etc., I get that part of it, but what's with the eternal torture aspect? That doesn't sound to me like something a loving Creator would even think of doing, and since God created everything, then he certainly created Hell.. it isn't just a separation, a "going somewhere God is not", because He had to have created that place called Hell... I don't know, it's just really confusing to me to hear people talking about how much He loves us and then in the next sentence, "Oh, by the way, if you don't accept Jesus as Savior, you're going to be in complete, unimaginable agony forever. Also, this aspect of Christianity turns so many people away, because to many people it doesn't sound like free choice, it sounds like God is saying, "You'd better do what I say and accept my Son as your Savior, or you will be tortured forever. That doesn't exactly sound like there's much "choice", it sounds more like forcing people to Love God, and forced love is not true love, is it? Because there's always that "Hell" factor hanging above our heads.
You'd better do it this way, or you will *suffer forever in a lake of fire*.
Please help me understand.
Thanks,
Mark
Oh, also, I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that he died on the Cross, bearing our sins, etc., I just haven't been able to cross that line in my life yet where I can actually "give" myself to Christ and feel confident and truthful calling myself "Christian". I'd like to be able to do that.
MY COMMENTS: Hi Mark. Concerning your last remark above, read and believe Romans 10:9,10:
"That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."
It is not a matter of "giving," it is a matter of believing. Belief comes first, then feelings.
As to your OP, there have been a number of excellent posts. I'll just try to set forth the pertinent points, as I see it, more concisely.
First of all, the popular traditional view is that man has an eternal soul, and upon death the righteous will go immediately into the presence of Christ and God in heaven; while those deemed wicked or unbelievers, will go immediately to hell (a place of fire and brimstone)to suffer conscious everlasting torment. Where it is they are not sure; some say in the center of the earth.
Emphatically, I will say this is wrong. It is based upon a doctrine of man having an immortal soul, a teaching from Greek philosophy. The Bible says, in Rom. 6:23 "The wages of sin is death;" not eternal torment in hell.
Now,let us investigate this using as literal translations as possible, as well as good study tools such as Young's Concordance, a Greek/Hebrew lexicon, Bible encyclopedia, etc.
First, there is nothing in the Scriptures that say that man has an "eternal soul".
The key is in the first book of the Bible, Genesis:
Gen.2:7 "And the Lord God formedman of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." AV.
NOTICE: A separate soul was not joined to a prepared body. Man became a living soul (being in some versions) when the breath of the spirit of life was breathed into his nostrils.
To be brief: Many times man is called a "soul" in the Scriptures. See Gen.12:5, 46:26; Ex.12:4; Acts 2:41,43; 7:14; 27:37; Rom.2:9; 13:1 etc.
Many times the soul is said to die or be dead: Josh.10:28,30,32,35,37,39; Jer. 2:34; Ez, 13:19; 18:4, 22:25-27, etc.
If the soul of a man is destroyed, it means the man is destroyed, thet is, dies.
Soul could be said to be the consciousness, the feelings, the desires, produced by the breath of life vitalizing the body.
In other posts it was shown that in the Greek scriptures, only three words have been "translated" as "hell": Gehenna, Hades, and Tartaroo.
Jesus, in the Gospels, alluded to "Gehenna" or the "fires of Gehenna" eleven times, as something for his disciples and the multitudes to fear.
Gehenna was the valley outside the southern wall of Jerusalem where the offal and rubbish of the city was dumped. It was continually kept burning to destroy anything burnable and to help purify the air. No doubt there were maggots eating any waste matter that wasn't burned up.
The worst sentence a law-breaker could get was to be sentenced to the fires of Gehenna, because he would be stoned to death and his body cast into Gehenna, where the fires were kept burning (in Jesus day) and where the maggots would eat what parts of the body didn't burn up.
NOTICE: any one sentenced to Gehenna was alive when the judgment was given by the Sanhedrin.
A dead person cannot be punished.
And from Jesus words of warning, IMO, Gehenna will be below the walls of the restored Jerusalem in the millennial kingdom. See Matt. 5:22,29,30; 10:28; 18:9; 23:15,33; Mark 9:43,45,47; Luke 12:5.
The second word is "Hades." Its root meaning is "unseen" and is equivalent to "Sheol" in the OT.
Unfortunatel "Sheol" was interpreted as "hell" in almost half the occurrences in the OT, yet a careful reading will show that "grave" or "the grave" should be used in most cases. And sometimes "pit" or "the unseen" in the others.
This occurs 10 times: Matt. 11:23; 16:18; Luke 10:15; 16:23; Acts 2:27,31; Rev. 1:18; 6:8; 20:13 and 14.
One could translate it either "the greave" or "the unseen" depending on the context.
The last word is "Tartaroo" which literally means "cast down to Tartarus."
Peter used this word to describe the fallen angels being cast down to the gloomy caverns of Tartarus. "Tartarus" was from Greek mythology, a prison of deepest gloom where some of the falllen gods were placed. When used in Scripture, is is purified.
So then, the concept of a 'place of torment in a burning fire for the souls of the wicked' is false.
What then, were the worst judgments in Jesus day, and in the future millennium? To be sentenced to Gehenna. Obviously, it was a live person who was sentenced.
Question: Many times in Scripture, we read "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, sayeth the Lord." or something like that. Will not that take place before Christ Jesus on his great white throne, as we read in Rev. 20:11-15? I say yes!
For instance, If a wicked ruler is responsible for thousands of deaths, then he will feel all those deaths, somehow. And if he has persecuted the righteous, then God will exact His vengeance on him.
Look how Paul describes this time in Romans 2:2ff, KJV:
"But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things....But after thy hardness and impenitent heart threasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of revelation of the righteous judgment of God; WHO WILL RENDER TO EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS: To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:
But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obdy unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul that does evil, of the Jew first, and also the Gentile;
But glory, honour, and peace, to every man that worketh good, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile; For there is no respect of persons with God."
And, as I understand, these resurrected to be judged at the great white throne, will be all the dead who have not been already resurrected to life, such as the church/body of Christ taken up at the 'rapture', and all the OT saints and tribulation saints resurrected after Messiah Jesus comes again to establish his kingdom: called the first or former resurrection, Rev. 20:4,5.
All for now.
