Is Punishment Eternal? One can empathize with those who hold this opinion.
No matter how just the penalty, endless punishment seems cruelly excessive. The very thought of the Lake of Fire being the eternal abode of any creature, no matter how evil, is humanly repugnant. Could God who ? Would He not find a way, somehow, for all eventually to be saved? The Bible must be our guide. But does the Bible in fact teach that those who leave this life without Christ are lost forever? Jesus warned of hell repeatedly, referring to it fourteen times. Peter refers to it three times, James once, and the four times it is mentioned in Revelation make up the balance of the twenty- two times the word .
The Case For Eternal Punishment Saturday, May 30th. It calls for a person who dies with certain unconfessed sins to “work off” the penalty for those sins through their suffering and the intercessory prayers of living.
Jesus referred to hell as a place of torment in a . That sounds like eternal punishment—but for whom? With one exception, there are two Greek words translated as hell in the New Testament: hades and geenna (gehenna). The word hades is rendered . Sheol was where the souls and spirits of the dead went upon the death of the body. Since the same word is used for the abode of all the dead, sheol/hades must have accommodated both the lost and the saved. That this was indeed the case, and that their condition and experience were drastically different, is clear from biblical usage of these words in both Old and New Testaments.
How can we say Jesus paid the penalty for our sins? Jesus didn't spend eternity. He could pay the eternal penalty of human sin in one ultimate sacrifice. In 1 Peter 2:24, Peter refers to Jesus as the suffering servant. Not all sports have a penalty box (these do: hockey, lacrosse, rugby, field hockey, roller derby, water polo, handball, ringette), but all sports have some way. The Pre-Reformation Period. Notice here the idea that the punishment includes what the sinner misses as well as a positive penalty.
For example, David's prophetic declaration, . Thus, sheol and hades were the same place and must have been occupied by the redeemed since the Messiah was there while His body lay in the grave.
The doctrine of eternal punishment is the. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal. However, believers have been freed from the eternal penalty of sin—hell and spiritual death—but now we also have the power to resist sinning.
That the lost were also there, but in a separate area, is clear from Christ's statement that when the rich man died, . That part of hades, which Christ referred to as . He is presently in heaven at the Father's right hand (Acts: 7: 5.
Heb: 1: 3; 8: 1, etc.). The souls and spirits of believers who die today are taken immediately into Christ's presence in heaven rather than to the former . Moreover, he declared that at the Rapture, when Christ descends from heaven, He brings the souls and spirits of the dead saints . They must therefore have been with Him in heaven awaiting the day when they would be reunited with their resurrected bodies raised incorruptible from the grave. It is thus clear what Christ meant when He said, .
This statement is often misunderstood to mean that the gates of hades are somehow on the move, attacking the church—which hardly makes sense for gates. However, it does make sense if the redeemed were within those gates when Christ made that statement. That this refers only to that side of hades where the damned were confined, and still are, is also clear. Clearly, only the damned are ever in geenna, which must therefore be that part of hades where the lost are confined. This is the second death. Thus the final fate of the lost who have been geenna's inhabitants awaiting their .
As the saved are taken to heaven to . It is thus the greatest of tragedies that any humans go there. However, those who become the followers of Satan are forever with him in the Lake of Fire just as the followers of Christ are forever with Him in heaven. Inasmuch as these same words are used, if . Thus, if there were an escape from the Lake of Fire, heaven would not be permanent either.
Having established that just as the Bible teaches eternal bliss for the redeemed, so it also teaches eternal punishment for the damned, let us consider the question with which we began: Why must this be so, and how could a God who . Of man's creation we read that God . In the Greek of the New Testament . These words have a variety of possible related meanings, but the biblical meaning is clear from the way they are used. Man is body, soul and spirit, not just body and soul/spirit: .
Lacking space to distinguish between the soul and the spirit, we must be content with understanding that these together constitute the thinking person as distinct from the inhabited body. The old materialism with its view that nothing exists but matter is no longer tenable even for secular science.
Thoughts and intelligence are demonstrably not physical. The body has only been the means whereby the thinking, nonmaterial person living within has been able to function in the physical universe. When the body dies there is no reason either in logic, science or the Bible to suggest that the soul and spirit cease to exist. The fact that, as a thinking and experiencing being composed of soul and spirit, man is nonmaterial requires an eternal destiny from which there is no escape. That we are eternally accountable to the God who created us and as sinners are separated from God in His perfect holiness is rational, biblical and clear to every person's conscience. Separation from the only source of life brings both physical and spiritual death.
Man's only hope is God's love and grace; there is nothing he could himself do to heal this breach between himself and his Creator. The question then becomes why God, who revealed Himself to Moses (on the very mount where He gave the Law) as ? That question is especially puzzling in view of the numerous statements in Scripture that God sent His Son ?
Love is only part of God's character. He is also infinitely and perfectly just. How can God forgive someone who admits no guilt? How can He forgive those who insist that there is nothing for which He needs to forgive them? And would it not be the utmost folly to do so?
If in His mercy and grace God simply passed over human rebellion, would that not be condoning evil and even encouraging it? Would that not in itself undermine God's control of His universe? God's laws are essential to governing the physical universe. The moral beings who have the power to act destructively must also be governed by laws, or chaos would reign. If He would go back on His moral laws, who could have any confidence in anything else that God has said or would say?
Christ asked His disciples to pray, . Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Surely that fact indicates that all is not as God desires it to be on this earth. Men are in rebellion against Him.
Forgiveness can only be in accord with God's justice. In fact, God has provided and offers pardon and new life to everyone—but it can only be on a righteous basis. God's love cannot nullify His justice, as we have often reminded our readers and as everyone knows in his conscience. God's justice demands a penalty for sin. Only through Christ's payment of the full penalty on the cross has forgiveness been made possible. Pointing forward to this fact, John the Baptist declared of Christ to his own followers: .
The problem is that multitudes are not willing to accept God's pardon on a just basis but want Him to forgive them unjustly. Moral laws are even more important and impervious to compromise than physical laws. Every miracle such as the Red Sea opening, Christ walking on water or turning water into wine, the sun standing still for Joshua, etc. However, to override the laws that govern physical events does not affect God's moral character. But God himself cannot override His moral laws because it would be contrary to His very character and Being. Jesus says, . God has spoken and cannot go back on His Word.
The problem with rebellious man is that he is not willing to let God be God but insists that the Creator should abdicate control of His creation, renounce His moral character and laws and allow man to take over the universe and govern it his way. But surely love accepts man as he is, does it not? That is the false and destructive humanistic idea of . Those who insist that love should . A mother's love causes her to care for her child from the moment it is born. It makes no more sense to imagine that a mother's love would be content with a child's remaining in ignorance because it didn't want to learn, or with the child's love for nothing but junk food as it grows up, than that her love would ? On the contrary, real love desires the best and corrects those who are destroying themselves.
Even of those whom He has redeemed and who have believed on Him, Jesus says, . Such is the desire of multitudes; they want God to leave them alone so they can do their own thing. In the end, that is exactly what God reluctantly does. After pleading with them and trying to persuade them to accept His forgiveness (which can only be given on a righteous basis through Christ's payment of the penalty for their sins), He gives them their desire and leaves them alone—for eternity! That God did not give in to man, go back on His Word, or change His standards of righteousness and justice, but stood by His Word, will eternally be to His glory. Therefore, God will be glorified even in those in hell.
That is a horrible thought but one to which we are driven both by Scripture and reason.
Eternal Death (Forerunner Commentary) - Bible Tools. There are at least two applications for these verses: the first for people who, for one reason or another, have left the church of God, His truth, and His way of life; and a second for those who are still actively in the church. The most common misinterpretation of this verse is the claim that it proves there are some sins a person can commit and not incur the penalty of eternal death.
Can this be true? In short, no! We know very well that the wages of sin is death (Romans 6: 2. To this, there can be no exceptions! God does not categorize sins this way. Instead, the Bible distinguishes sins differently. Through the author of the book of Hebrews, God shows us that . Conversely, any sin can also lead to eternal death if it is not confessed and repented of, and if it is allowed to continue repeatedly in a person's life.
It is gradually becoming clear that this whole matter revolves around this word . The Greek word is hekousios, and it means . Those who are unruly are continuously unwilling to obey the rules, in this case, God's rules!
They unceasingly refuse to accept God's government and His laws. Sin unto death may not necessarily include all those who have apparently left the church, nor even all those who have been disfellowshipped, but only those who have willfully rejected God's way to the extent that it is no longer possible for them to be brought to repentance.
However, this is certainly not suggesting that it is acceptable for a person to take God's loving mercy for granted, to think that he can leave God's church to . Such devices or actions carry with them some obvious and very real dangers, bringing to mind another well known but somewhat fearsome biblical passage: For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. Obviously, it is often very difficult for any fellow human being to determine who has and who has not . We should rather err on the side of praying for our errant brethren than not praying. John implies that our prayer may be futile, but he does not say that it is a sin to pray even for a seemingly hopeless case, as long as we do not know for sure that it is totally hopeless. Finally, let us bring this subject around to include those who are still in God's church. If any of us sees or hears of a fellow church member who is normally striving to obey God .
When we do so, God will hear and answer our prayers and may, according to His will, . This is the kind of concern we must have for all of our spiritual brothers and sisters, and it is one way that we can ? And should we pray for friends and loved ones who have left God's truth? Again, yes, we should, for.