humanity punished in eternal hell? Theology

reply to post by borntowatch



IMO the answer to this is a simple yes. Jesus made it perfectly clear time and time again that hell (sheol or hades, depending on the translation) will be a place of eternal punishment, there is no end or getting out of it once there.

Here is a list of verses where Jesus describes what hell (sheol or hades, depending on the translation) will be like.

"fire" Matt 7:19, 13:40, 25:41
"everlasting fire" Matt 18:8, 25:41
"eternal damnation" Mark 3:29
"hell fire" Matt 5:22, 18:9, Mark 9:47
"damnation" Matt 23:14, Mark 12:40, Luke 20:47
"damnation of hell" Matt 23:33
"resurrection of damnation" John 5:29
"furnace of fire" Matt 13:42, 50
"the fire that never shall be quenched" Mark 9:43, 45
"the fire is not quenched" Mark 9:44, 46, 48
"Where their worm dieth not" Mark 9:44, 46, 48
"wailing and gnashing of teeth" Matt 13:42, 50
"weeping and gnashing of teeth" Matt 8:12, 22:13, 25:30
"torments" Luke 16:23
"tormented in this flame" Luke 16:24
"place of torment" Luke 16:28
"outer darkness" Matt 8:12, 22:13
"everlasting punishment" Matt 25:46

It should be noted that the everlasting punishment does not come into play until after the 1,000 year reign of Christ. At that time those who were not raised in the first resurrection (at the return of Christ or Rapture) are pretty much toast.

Revelation 20:6
Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

Revelation 2:11
“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”’

The following verses below also show that hell (sheol or hades, depending on the translation) is an everlasting punishment.

Revelation 14:10
He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night,

Revelation 20:10
The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

13 The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. 14 Then Death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. 15 And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

Some might argue that the lake of fire or eternal punishment is only for satan and his buddies, but the scripture is clear that it is not just for them, but for all those who do not believe.

Revelation 21:8
But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.”

And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.

I think this is more than enough proof that hell or whatever you want to call it is everlasting punishment and not a place anyone wants to be.

Here is a nice little site that refutes the eternal punisment of the bible. there various articals from different authors.

www.tentmaker.org...

The doctrine of hell is not in the scriptures.It. is incomplete oppostion to GOds character. It is the most blasphemous charge brought against the creator.The scripture evid3nce has been shown many times here at ATS but the religion's refuse to see it. Hell is. Not good news. But religious preach it as though it is.That is perversion.They have no evidence-based
nly their false doctrines.Follow the tent maker link then answer it how it is. Not tru3.

reply to post by Rex282


Do you have scripture to back up your claim? Did you read my other post here? If you had, you might think otherwise.

reply to post by borntowatch

Eternal destruction is eternal nothing, after judgement and punishment.

When do you think judgment happens? I would say that we don't know. You seem to be basing this theory on something completely hypothetical.

There was a judgment that was predicted in the gospels and then executed in 70 AD with the overthrow of Jerusalem and the subsequent destruction of the temple, by the Roman legions. That put a final end to the Jewish religion as it existed in the time of Jesus, the religion that crucified Christ.

As for a great Day of the Lord, where the physical universe as we know it ceases to exist, that was more of a modern legend that was in common belief at the time that the New Testament was written, so it shows up in places like Revelation, 2 Peter, Jude, and 1 Thessalonians, but it is more of a obligatory inclusion of a tradition that started with the Book of Job, about an end to the god of this world and His judgment by the actual real universal God who is god over everything.
That can be explained as a concept by the events that I alluded to above. We had earlier seen God as through a glass darkly but mow see Him more clearly as the accoutrements previously attached to God had been swept away, leaving the image of Him made by Jesus.

"Eternal" is a term that was applied to the human soul early on in Christian theology, and was considered essential to what the theology is about, which is that what you do in this life is important because you enjoy or suffer accordingly, in the future, after this life, depending on whether you live badly, or if you do good.

Death and Hell being burnt in the lake of fire in Revelation is metaphorical of people finally coming into harmony with God, to the point that people could actually live in the presence of God, as in the Eden story, and not be destroyed from having evil in them, then in that condition, people would never have to fear death anymore.

On the other hand, people who lived evil lives with no intention of ever reforming, would have a sort of unsatisfactory existence, but not the real bodily sort as we have in the land of the living, but one where you exist sort of like you are now (having a fuzzy self image that includes at least the perception of having a body), but you can't really live a life where you can actually do things that matter. I think this is a natural process that doesn't require God doing anything, but is where everyone goes if left to the devices that the normal operation of the physical universe applies to things that it has no use for, such as the ethereal remains of a soul no longer having a real physical body.

Eternal destruction is eternal nothing, after judgement and punishment.

Eternal destruction is eternal nothing. Eternal nothing is heaven.
The realization of nothing is heaven.
The belief in something is hell.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Yep. Which means that God would be incomplete without each and every human who has ever lived and ever will joining him when the game ends.

Originally posted by BlueMule
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

Yep. Which means that God would be incomplete without each and every human who has ever lived and ever will joining him when the game ends.

God is never incomplete. Even when there is nothing appearing he is whole - light only appears to divide the darkness.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


Yep. What I meant was (sorry if this didn't come across) if humanity is in hell (separate from God in heaven) then God would be incomplete. Hence, no eternity in hell.

OP, borntowatch, I find your comments on wheat and chaff of interest. i used to see wheat and chaff much as I saw wheat and tares, but then I realized that the chaff is not entirely separate, as it comes off the wheat kernel. Wheat and chaff are both us, but the chaff is burned in the Lake of Fire, leaving the wheat as God's portion. With our chaff/dross taken away, we are fit for the Kingdom. Further, here is my standard statement on Hell:

Hell is a 404 – location not found.

There are four main props of Hell, and I will knock them down in succession:

Prop One
Without the concept of the Immortality of the soul, Hell begins to get a bit shaky. It's very simple to dismiss if we look at the story of the creation of man by God. We all know it - God took some dirt, made a body, breathed into the body the Breath of Life, and that body became a living soul. To simplify:

dead body + breath of life = living soul

Now, let's reverse it:

living soul - breath of life = dead body

Perfect logic - start with the living person (soul) and kill it, so that the breath of life returns to God who gave it, and what do you have left? A dead body! So that means that when you're dead, you're dead. There is no immortal soul to go to Hell, Hades, or the Inferno, for the soul is temporal, and after death, is simply not. The same Bible which the Eternal Torture (ET) crowd likes to quote about Hell, says that "the soul [living person] that sinneth shall die." Being temporal, the soul [living person] becomes non-existant at death and there is therefore no soul at all to damn to Hell. The spirit cannot go there either, because it has returned to God who gave it. Is God going to send part of His own Spirit to Hell? God forbid! God forbid also the absurdity of sending a dead body to Hell, except in the original sense of the word. You see, an old meaning of “Hell” is as a verb, meaning to cover or conceal. For instance, in the days before refrigeration, you might keep fruits and vegetables in a root cellar, or lacking that, you might dig a trench to below the local frost line, lay straw in the bottom, place, say, potatoes on the straw, cover the potatoes with more straw, and cover the whole thing with the dug-out dirt. It was called “helling” the potatoes. When you bury a dead body, you are helling it, too. There is a very close connection between hell as concealment into the ground, and hell as the grave. There remains, if you examine all this closely, nothing to send to Hell except a dead body into the ground. If we jump forward from Genesis to the Revelation, we see that Death and Hell [the grave, actually] are both thrown into the Lake of Fire. Now, I ask you, if such a thing has happened, how can Hell still exist (if it ever existed), and how can the dead be in Hell if Death has been destroyed? Let's move on.

Prop Two
"Hell" as we have come to understand it, has come down to us, like the Greek concept of the Immortality of the Soul, from pagan sources. Immortality of the Soul comes from Greek philosophy, but all the other trappings of Hell come from various mythologies. I don't want to elaborate too much on the Scandinavian "Hel," the Greek "Hades," or the Latin "Inferno," but you can look them up for yourself if you are not familiar with the mythology. This is how "Hell," or "the grave," became Hell, the place of eternal torment. Check any good dictionary, especially the Oxford, for information on Hell. "Hell," as I said above, is also a verb, meaning "to bury," reinforcing the "grave" usage. Even the Buddhist concept of Hell is very close to the ET version, the main difference being in the artistic style of the representation. Fiery Hells and red Devils are common in pagan mythologies. Two props down, it won't take much more.

(more to follow)

Prop Three
This one is very simple – several words in the Bible have been translated as “Hell” improperly. A couple of hours with a Strong's or Young's Concordance should clear up this chestnut for you. Consider these correct definitions of terms used in the Bible:

Sheol (Hebrew) - grave.
Hades (Greek) - grave, place of the unconscious, place of the unknowing.
Gehenna (Greek) - a location near Jerusalem you can visit today, used as a garbage dump in Jesus' time, where trash and dead bodies were burned - thus a figurative term.
Tartarus (Greek)- a place of holding for angels who followed Satan; a term borrowed from Greek mythology.

To give you an idea of translators having a theological agenda, did you ever think about the way the proper name of God, YHWH, has been rendered as "LORD"? At the same time, the names of all and sundry pagan gods have been (improperly) rendered properly, when the God who said not to even speak their names gets short shrift. This happens because the (mis)translators had and have an agenda, and "Hell" is no different. One prop left.

Prop Four
If you care to dig into it, you will find that apart from what I have already mentioned, which eliminates both the concept and word of “Hell” from the Scriptures, all the evidence for "Hell" is based on fiction. Yes, fiction - from the Inferno of Durante degli Alighieri (Dante), to John Milton’s Paradise Lost, to Mary Baxter's A Divine Revelation of Hell, everything we have to support the concept of Hell is fiction, even if it is Biblicaly-oriented faction. Every last account and discription of “Hell” is unverifiable, from epic poem, to novel, to short story, to sermon, to EweToob video. Fiction - Legend - Myth - Lies.

Heaven, yes!

Hell, no.

Righteous judgement exists as well, hence a punishment is necessary as well as a sacrifice, Christ
humanity can live with out the Spirit of God.
I believe in hell, no question,
I just wonder if its eternal for humanity,
I believe hell is eternal for fallen spirits.

Thanks again LS.all that have ears to hear will listen.those that don, t..wont.They will search the scriptures thinking that in them thry have life..yet will fail to hear the truth of the living word., i judge no one that, s just the way it is.

Originally posted by Lazarus Short
Prop Three
This one is very simple – several words in the Bible have been translated as “Hell” improperly. A couple of hours with a Strong's or Young's Concordance should clear up this chestnut for you. Consider these correct definitions of terms used in the Bible:

Sheol (Hebrew) - grave.
Hades (Greek) - grave, place of the unconscious, place of the unknowing.
Gehenna (Greek) - a location near Jerusalem you can visit today, used as a garbage dump in Jesus' time, where trash and dead bodies were burned - thus a figurative term.
Tartarus (Greek)- a place of holding for angels who followed Satan; a term borrowed from Greek mythology.

To give you an idea of translators having a theological agenda, did you ever think about the way the proper name of God, YHWH, has been rendered as "LORD"? At the same time, the names of all and sundry pagan gods have been (improperly) rendered properly, when the God who said not to even speak their names gets short shrift. This happens because the (mis)translators had and have an agenda, and "Hell" is no different. One prop left.

Prop Four
If you care to dig into it, you will find that apart from what I have already mentioned, which eliminates both the concept and word of “Hell” from the Scriptures, all the evidence for "Hell" is based on fiction. Yes, fiction - from the Inferno of Durante degli Alighieri (Dante), to John Milton’s Paradise Lost, to Mary Baxter's A Divine Revelation of Hell, everything we have to support the concept of Hell is fiction, even if it is Biblicaly-oriented faction. Every last account and discription of “Hell” is unverifiable, from epic poem, to novel, to short story, to sermon, to EweToob video. Fiction - Legend - Myth - Lies.

Heaven, yes!

Hell, no.

Yet not one scripture to back any of your brlirfs up, not a drop of evidence.
Guess you hate the apostle Paul and believe Christ was a spirit and not human. Thats not a question

You are free to choose.

Originally posted by borntowatch

Yet not one scripture to back any of your brlirfs up, not a drop of evidence.
Guess you hate the apostle Paul and believe Christ was a spirit and not human. Thats not a question

You are free to choose.

I think you must have missed my thesis, or maybe I need to state it explicitly: "Hell" as generally understood, is NOT in the Scriptures. Prop One - immortality of the soul - not in the Bible, so therefore, no Bible quotes were needed. For the creation of man, I could have quoted Genesis 2, but I just thought nearly everyone knows the story, so I didn't need to spoonfeed you all. Ditto for the Lake of Fire. C'mon, this is the internet age - you've got any number of sites to check book, chapter, and verse to see if I am telling the truth, and I am. Prop Two - the pagan background of the Hell concept is not in the Bible, and again, Bing and Google are your friends. Prop Three - entire scholarly books have been written on this subject, so I just gave the correct meanings of terms, as I was trying not to write a tome no one would read. Anyway (as I said) you can check out Strong's and/or Young's to see if what I say is true, and it is. If you don't have a concordance, get one or the other, and if you get the latter, get a Young's Literal Translation Bible to go with it - it will open your eyes, as there is no Hell in it. Prop Four - no quotes from the Bible are needed to comment on fiction - it's FICTION! I'll just offer this: the writers of such fictions may be guilty of violating what Jesus said in the Revelation, chapter 21, verse 18: "...If anyone should add to these things, God shall add to him the plagues which are written in this book." -from the KJV II

No, I don't hate the apostle Paul, I admire him, and BTW there is NO mention of Hell in his writings. Do you really think I'm a gnostic because I deny Hell? Hell is an idea, and Jesus was flesh, that is to say, human - fully human (fully God too: YHWH = "Behold the Hand, Behold the Nail"). Clear? Or am I getting ahead of you?

I'll end with this, and I can easily copy and paste dozens of Bible verses compatible with Universal Reconciliation, which exclude anyone being cast into eternal Hell: "In fact, that's why we toil and struggle: because our hope is in the Living God, the savior of ALL humanity, especially the faithful." -I Timothy 4:10 (The Unvarnished New Testament)

reply to post by Lazarus Short

Perfect logic - start with the living person (soul) and kill it, so that the breath of life returns to God who gave it, and what do you have left? A dead body! So that means that when you're dead, you're dead. There is no immortal soul to go to Hell, Hades, or the Inferno, for the soul is temporal, and after death, is simply not.

How do you explain Matthew 10:28?

28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

reply to post by Lazarus Short

. . . which exclude anyone being cast into eternal Hell: "In fact, that's why we toil and struggle: because our hope is in the Living God, the savior of ALL humanity, especially the faithful." -I Timothy 4:10 (The Unvarnished New Testament)

The so-called Timothy letters were later forgeries made to look like Paul had written them, so I would advise against them being used in an authoritative way to back up an already sketchy doctrine.

If you read the story in John of the Samaritans, you have them proclaiming Jesus as the prophesied "savior of the world", where what it meant was not just the Jews, but at least the Samaritans too.
My conclusion would be that whoever wrote the "letter" that you quoted, was trying to pick up the same general idea, that salvation was not just for the Jews who kept the Mosaic Law, but it was available to everyone, of course (according to this criminal fraudster) it helps in your effort to be good, if you believe.

Originally posted by Deetermined

How do you explain Matthew 10:28?

28 And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

I would read it in my mind to mean something like this:

Don't fear men who can kill your physical body, but cannot kill the living, breathing person that you are, for you will be resurrected. However, do fear God, who has the power to kill your physical body as men do, but Who can also destroy your living, breathing personhood as well.

My Ferrar Fenton Version uses "pit" instead of "hell." I think Fenton is one of the few honest modern translators. The Damnationists will interpret Matthew 10:28 to suit their view, and the Eternal Destructionists will as well. The ET/ED/UR debate will not be resolved by quoting a "proof text" here or a parable there - a evaluation of all pertinent Scripture will be needed, and that without preconceptions. I have seen this question from all sides, having been raised a Southern Baptist (ET), later an atheist, later a Seventh-Day Adventist (ED), and now a universalist (NOT Unitarian Universalist). I don't have a theological, or even a theo-illogical ax to grind.

reply to post by jmdewey60


Well, I just flat don't believe you concerning the Timothy letters. I do believe scholars have misled you. You may have more to unlearn than I did, but that is just a guess ==> $0.02.

reply to post by Lazarus Short


So, what about all of the people that are mentioned in 2 Peter, Chapter 2?

What happened/happens to them?

2 Peter 2:1-9

1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

2 And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.

3 And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

4 For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

5 And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;

6 And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

7 And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

8 (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;

9 The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished: