Hell: Is it eternal?

[Tirissana]

promised_child

lordstar

promised_child

lordstar

promised_child

lordstar

I tend to think more along the lines of simple action reaction rather than defining what is right and what is wrong

hence my dislike for absolutes
especially theoretical man made absolutes

I see.

It is still Absolutely wrong to take the life of a child because you dont want her to tell on you.

the laws of physics (action/reaction) are absolutes.
an object in motion will absolutely stay in motion until something stops it
etc

The laws of physics only hold true in the environment they were created in
if that makes any sense

also although I hold that all life is precious I can not say anything is universally right or wrong

would you ever kill a child, Lordstar?
if your answer is "no" like I think it would be, then that is an absolute.

there are no unforgivable sins except for grieving the Holy Spirit. I dont even know how to do that. that said, we should make an effort to not sin. it is wrong to break a law, recieve leniancy, promise not to do it again, then go out and break the same law willfully because hey you got off the first time. and since we live on earth, the laws of physics are absolutes for us...

would I ever kill a child?
I don't know
I might
I would hope not but I just don't know

are you saying that you dont know yourself?
personally
am I capable of murder? yes
am I capable of murdering a child? no, I wouldnt have it in me. I would kill myself first.

Actually none of us are really and honestly capable of murdering the person next to them. What makes us "capable" is the environment we live in and who we hang around with, none of us a born murderers. It's more Nurture than Nature.  

[ShideKnight]

That whole "are you capable" thing is kinda silly, I think. I suspect that the vast majority of people don't know themselves and what they are capable of enough to answer accuratly.  

[Imitation Stradivarius]

Hell is eternal.
Hell is spiritual death.

"For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life."

Heaven is eternal.
Heaven is life.

If one does not repent and ask Jesus into their heart to be saved, they will go to Hell (eternal).

There's a song I think of everytime someone mentions that whole sin in a linear POV. "I am covered over with the robe of righteousness that Jesus gives to me."

When we ask Jesus into our hearts to be our Savior, He is faithful and Just and cleanses us of unrighteousness. Yeah, we mess up, but He's always there to forgive us because He says He will.

Think about this one. The ultimate sin is to deny Christ as the Savior of our race. If we were to enter Heaven without having accepted Christ (theoretically. And don't even say, "THERE'S NO THEORETICAL!"), being in the presence of God would anger them. It's like being around a person you hate and you can't escape. Being in Heaven as an unforgiven sinner would be Hell for that person.

AUGH!!!!! What I mean is:

Hell is eternal.
There is no way of changing your mind and trying to get to Heaven from Hell.
Hell is punishment for those who did not accept Jesus as their Savior.
Hell is also an "I told you so" type of place.
Hell is an eternity of suffering because of the eternal separation from God.  

[Kupo-Sama]

Shouldn't a God who asks us to love him with all our hearts grant entry to those who genuinely feel it? If we present the idea that our God is a loving God, which is what Christ told us, and accept the thought that a man is condemned because say he was gay in his life, but loved God as much as any other Christian, are we to say that he would turn away that person because he was gay? If you think that, you must be a pretty close minded and hateful person. Present a scripture where Christ says, "Our God is a loving God who hates people who don't do everything the bible commands them and condemns him to hell because he followed, "Love the lord thy God with all your heart and Love one another as you would love yourself", but not everything else."

What message is Christianity preaching with those kind of ideals? Huh? Doesn't that entire way of thinking just contradict one another?  

[Imitation Stradivarius]

He wouldn't be turned away at Heaven's gates. If he loved God with the fiery passion that we are called to have, then he would be let in. Of course, just like everyone else, he would have to be held accountable for his sin. If this man loved God with everything, then God would say to him, "Well done." If the man was just giving lip service and saying that he loved God but didn't, God would say, "I never knew you."  

[Imitation Stradivarius]

I mean...It all depends on the sincerity of the person. God know all our hearts and our motivation behind each and every action that we do. If a man was gay and he loved God, but he served God with his all, then God would never turn him away and condemn the gay man to Hell. There's no way.

Even if that guy started out as straight, got saved, loved God and then "turned" gay, he would still have his salvation because Jesus said, "Nothing can snatch you out of my Father's hand."  

[Ablazed]

Most of what I'm reading in this thread is working off of a strange concept of Hell... it protrays God in a bad light, actually.

God is Love.

God is LOVING.

God is JUST.

Those are my three starting points for my reply.

Because God is Love, He created us. Why? Not as some weird little game or experiment... but so He could express His Love in a new, wonderful way. God created us to LOVE us. Our natural inclination is to Love Him in return. (Remember the Bible saying that God created us in His image? The capacity to love Him in return and to show Love to each other is part of that.)

But true Love is not forced. It must be chosen. So God gave us FREE WILL. To use our will to love Him back. But we are not perfect. That's where sin comes into the picture.

As I said earlier, we all have the natural inclination to love God. But due to all kinds of circumstances, that inclination can be misdirected. We search for love in the wrong places. We place our love in the wrong things. We choose to love other things above God. Every single person has done this. That is our great flaw. (For ALL have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God).

So then there's Jesus. Even though we choose to pursue love in the wrong way, God is still reaching out to us. God still loves us, and we still love Him in return.

Even people who aren't Christian are loving God. If they love their neighbor well, if they try to be good stewards of what they have been given, they are acting on the good elements of human nature. God still loves them. Even if they are a good person, live a good life, and yet say they are athiest. Or are members of some other religion. Heaven is still open to them, because they are still honoring God with their lives - they just don't realize it.

Okay. So now to get to the subject of Hell.

Typical view of Hell - it is a place God created to punish us. It is widely used as a scare tactic to win converts - "ooooo, you'd better be Christian, or you're going to hell!" That doesn't make sense. Why would God use such a tactic? Would He want to win us to Him through FEAR, or through LOVE?

LOVE.

When we die, we are STILL given the option to choose God or not. There are those who have become so entrenched in their sinful ways, there are those who actively hate God so much that they still do not want anything to do with him. So God will not violate their free will. He will not force anyone to be with him.

And thus they go to Hell. Hell is.... a place where the presence of God is absent. It is a lack of good. Lack of God. How horrible!!

But God is Just. He does not create someone simply to destroy them. We all can CHOOSE to go to hell, or not to go to hell.

It is the action of Jesus Christ that gives us this option.  

[Crimson Raccoon]

Ablazed, I'm not quite sure of what you're saying. Do you mean that you don't believe hell is about punishment at all?

Also, what if someone doesn't want to choose to go to hell; what if they chose to go to heaven, but they don't want to dedicate their lives to serving Christ? I don't think it's right to so much emphasize it as a choice between heaven and hell; I'm not aware that the Bible ever presents it that way. It's more like a choice to follow Christ or not; and if we don't, then we bear the guilt of our own sins and must be sent to hell - not because we choose to go to hell, but because "the wages of sin is death," as Romans 6 says. Either we pay the penalty that we justly deserve, or we claim Christ as our savior and he pays it for us. This is the choice that the Bible presents as I've read it; it's not choosing to be with God or not.

I agree that Love is about having the free will to choose to love someone. But I don't agree that we all have the natural inclination to love God, and that even people who aren't Christians are loving God. The Bible in Romans 3 says that "No one seeks for God." So it would really seem that our natural inclination is not to love him, because of sin, we don't even seek him. Rather, it is Christ who seeks after us and loves us before we ever loved him. "The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost." - Luke 19:10; "We love because he first loved us." - 1 John 4:19. Anyone who has not been redeemed by Christ is still a slave to sin. We cannot serve two masters - if we are not serving God, then we hate him. (Luke 16:13) The idea that someone who hates God is still honoring God with their life totally contradicts the Bible, and also makes the whole idea of hell rather bizarre. If they were honoring God with their lives, why would the Bible call them "wicked," and why would they deserve any punishment? If we were all honoring God from the beginning, why did Christ need to sacrifice anything for us? Heaven is reachable only if we claim Christ as our savior and put our faith in him; because otherwise, our guilt is still ours to carry and the only just penalty is hell.

No one would ever choose to go to hell; the Rich Man of Luke 16 certainly didn't want to be where he was, and wanted to warn his brothers so they wouldn't end up there. Our choice is here and now, in this life - will we confess that Christ is Lord and be saved, or will we live honoring ourselves and build up more guilt? Jesus died and suffered damnation on the cross so that loving God and knowing God's love would be possible for us, so that the penalty for our sin would be paid, restoring our relationship with God. Following him in this life is the only way to be saved from hell.

I know your concern about people choosing God out of love and not out of fear. Sometimes the threat of hell is abused and thrown around irreverently, and that is the wrong way to do it. But at the same time, there is an appropriate way to speak of hell, and it does involve some amount of fear. After all, "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom." - Proverbs 9:10.

Christ spoke about hell very frequently, and vividly. His hearers couldn't have been without some fear when he spoke soberly about fire that is never quenched and worms that never die (Mark 9:48 ). It's only when we understand what we deserve for our sin, that we can appreciate what we've been saved from. Only once we realize our guilt can we understand the complete loving sacrifice that Jesus made for us, and that's what brings us to love him. The fear is transformed into love. If there is nothing to fear in the first place, then what would anyone care to follow Christ for? What was his sacrifice worth? Why should someone change their life to serving God, if they have nothing to fear if they just continue serving themselves? The fear and guilt make us realize our need for salvation; the realization of what Christ did for us so that we could be saved is what brings us to willingly love him in return.