A little help from our friends, please...

elarson1110, dear brother, have faith and trust in God alone. Don't let the lies and sin-tainted "reason" of this world draw you astray. God alone is perfect, holy, just, true, noble, and good, and we can trust Him. He is the Creator, and we are the created under His sovereign authority and kingly rule. God's holy Word tells us that there is no one good or righteous (See Romans 3:10), that ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Because this is in God’s inspired word, it is eternally true. The Christian MUST submit to the Word of God.

RC Sproul once said something in a book that is helpful (I'll paraphrase). God is never unjust, and does not do any injustice to his creatures. God only gives justice or mercy, because He is both just and merciful. Justice is getting what you deserve, and mercy is getting what you do not deserve. Injustice is getting punishment you don’t deserve, and injustice is not found in God (Romans 9:14-16 - 14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy.”). Since our natural state is depravity because of our sin, we ALL deserve God’s justice, namely His wrath and punishment for our rebellion against Him. But God is also merciful and to some. He gives mercy by regenerating the sinner to see his sin and have repentance and faith in Christ. This is not because of anything done by the sinner to deserve God’s mercy.

To say that punishing people in hell is unjust is to call God unjust, and to call God unjust necessarily implies that man has some degree of inherent goodness that does not deserve His eternal punishment. This is a blatantly anti-Scriptural thing to claim, and you need to repent of this, dear brother. All men are liars, and only God is perfectly true. We have to understand from God’s word that any sin, no matter how great or small, is heinous when committed against a perfect and holy God and deserving of eternal punishment. Through the lens of Scripture, and trusting God that His Word is true and just, hell makes complete sense. However, that doesn’t mean it should not sadden us for those who are not of the faithful.

Hell’s reality should cause us to mourn for those who are hard against God, and should exhort us to take the gospel to unbelievers and call them to repentance and faith in Christ. Not doing this is a sin to which I am very prone. I ask God to help me repent of this and be faithful to Him in preaching His truth to unbelievers.

Turn away from the world’s “reason” and toward God, brother. Trust Him and His Word. Have faith. Don’t spend your time trying to outwit God regarding hell and spend it calling people to repentance and snatching them from the fires of hell with the true gospel. May God give us the boldness to do this in spite of our weakness and lack of faith.

Love,
Rob Bedinghaus

What the others have written is sufficient. Let this be a footnote:

That Hell is horrible is easy to understand. To know what Hell is is to know how bad it is. What you fail to grasp is the horror of Man. While the Bible does say, "we all, like sheep, have gone astray," it doesn't only say that. We aren't just dumb, straying animals--we are "by nature children of wrath" and "enemies" of God.

You say it is difficult to believe that the people walking around with you deserve the justice owed to "children of wrath." But this fallen nature that we all share is too horrific to appreciate from the inside. None of us has ever seen an unfallen man. We have no concept of how evil we are because we've lost sight of how good we ought to be: the full measure of the moral perfection of God Himself ("Be holy, for I the Lord your God am Holy.") But we do have testimony from some who, the Bible tells us, saw the Holy One. Their responses are telling. In Isaiah 6, for example, Isaiah doesn't complain about his punishment. But one look at the Lord convinces him it's deserved and it's coming.

And the one unfallen Man we hope to meet face to face taught us more about the punishment we all deserve than any fallen prophet, judge, priest or apostle.

Dear elarson1110,

Do not listen to Chris. His comment does not make any sense. On the other hand, the words of Daniel, Rob, Craig, and Andy should be helpful to you.

As my own addition, I will you give you the words of James Buchanan, from The Doctrine of Justification:

"Men are ever prone to take partial, one-sided views of the character of God, and to deduce erroneous conclusions from them. They imagine, - either that there be no real love in the divine mind, if there be any law-wrath, or judicial displeasure, against sin; or that there can be no serious wrath, and no strict adherence to justice, when love exists...Never was the union of infinite love with inflexible justice more signally displayed, and never was the nature, as well as the reality, of both more strikingly illustrated, than in the Cross of Christ."

Love,

Alex McNeilly

Try this essay from CS Lewis (referenced from here:

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/1174.htm

It's not perfect, but it certainly convicts me:

============

HELL – ETERNAL SUFFERING?

... The doctrine of hell, although barbarous to many, has the full support of Scripture, especially of our Lord’s own words; and has always been held by Christendom. And it has the support of Reason: if a game is played it must be possible to lose it. If the happiness of a creature lies in voluntary self-surrender to God, it also has the right to voluntarily refuse.

I would pay any price to be able to say truthfully ‘All will be saved’. But my reason retorts, ‘Without their will, or with it’? In fact, God has paid the price, and herein lies the real problem: so much mercy, yet still there is hell.

God can’t condone evil, forgiving the wilfully unrepentant. Lost souls have their wish – to live wholly in the Self, and to make the best of what they find there. And what they finds there is hell. Should God increase our chances to repent? I believe that if a million opportunities were likely to do good, they would be given. But finality has to come some time. Our Lord uses three symbols to describe hell – everlasting punishment (Matthew 25:46), destruction (Matthew 10:28), and privation, exclusion, banishment (Matthew 22:13). The image of fire illustrates both torment and destruction (not annihilation – the destruction of one thing issues in the emergence of something else, in both worlds). It may be feasible that hell is hell not from its own point of view, but from that of heaven. And it is also possible that the eternal fixity of the lost soul need not imply endless duration. Our Lord emphasises rather the finality of hell. Does the ultimate loss of a soul mean the defeat of Omnipotence? In a sense, yes. The damned are successful rebels to the end, enslaved within the horrible freedom they have demanded. The doors of hell are locked on the inside.

In the long run, objectors to the doctrine of hell must answer this question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins, and at all costs to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty, and offering every miraculous help? But he has done so – in the life and death of his Son. To forgive them? They will not be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, that is what he does. Hell, it must be remembered, is not only inhabited by Neros or Judas Iscariots or Hitlers. They were merely the principal actors in this rebellious drama.

If there is no Hell for those who abuse God, is He just?

If He is not just, is He loving?

If He is not loving, what do we make of the Cross?

If we would believe that there is no Hell, we do not believe in a just God, which means we do not believe in a loving God, which means we do not believe in the God who Is. Trust Him, elarson, and trust Him, Chris. Your knee will bow to Him regardless, and it is my prayer that you will enjoy, not dread, doing so.

Elarson,
Can I make a very simple suggestion - I've found that many of our issues arise from a shallow/unclear/misunderstanding of the atonement - don't study anything about the doctrine of hell for a few days, but immerse yourself in the doctrine of the atonement - get onto amazon and buy 2 books - Leon Morris The Atonement: Its Meaning and Significance, and follow it up with "Calvin and the Atonement: What the Renowned Pastor and Teacher Said About the Cross of Christ" by Robert Peterson.
Afterwards then put the pieces together regarding the doctrine of Hell.

"Hasssss God ssssurely sssaid?"

Chris is speaking for Satan here. If there are no stakes, then it is not imperative to repent and repent immediately.

Yes. God has said. Clearly and undeniably. And we would do well to take Him at His word.

"Use that belief to help you interpret these passages in a way that makes sense to you..."

Also, be careful not to form scripture around your own thinking, but instead, form your thinking around scripture. The way I read my Bible changed when a wise pastor once recommended that when we read scripture, it is important to question "in what ways will my flesh want to refute what I am reading?" as you go along.

Andrew (or is it Rev. Henry),

As an orthodox (lower case "o") Christian I have always believed that there is a heaven and a hell. People who accept God's glorious offer of salvation through Jesus Christ will go to heaven and those who do not will go to hell. That is pretty obviously stated in the Bible.

Having said that (and admitting that I am far from a Bible scholar), the C.S. Lewis quote you cited and the larger C.S. Lewis writing that it came from makes perfect sense to me. I don't say that because I think I'm all wise, but because I think that he provides scriptural support for it. I don't see much of a difference between between God giving men, women, and children over to their wickedness and giving them what they want -- eternal separation from God. Although it's easy to say this applies to unrepentant serial adulterers, prostitutes and their pimps, drug dealers, etc., IMHO it also applies to Joe and Jane Average who see no need for God in their lives, even though they have a good marriage, are good parents, help their neighbors, and volunteer at the local food pantry. Or Mary Single, a church member, but who attends mainly because she enjoys the single adult ministry more than she loves the Lord.

Again YMMV, but ISTM that these people would all would not be happy in heaven. They would have no interest spending their time singing praises to Jesus, doing what it necessary to maintain the eternal kingdom, etc. I think Lewis is right that they would be happier in hell because of their rejection of Christ; few, if none, would want to open that lock on the inside and free themselves from hell.

Just my .02,

Sue McK.

P.S. On a totally unrelated issue, I'm thanking the Lord as type this post, because it's the first time in almost 5 mos. I can type with 2 hands since a serious rollover auto accident in mid-June left me with many injuries, the worst of which was serious fractures in my left arm and wrist. I received a new splint yesterday that allows more finger movements, like typing. Praise God for my skillful occupational therapist who made my splint!

Count me rejoicing, too.

"Modern men think entirely too much about themselves already, so a doctrine of hell that focuses on subjectivity, individuality and personal choice appeals to their vanity, in a twisted way."

Right on, brother Andrew. People who hate God now would love Heaven. In Heaven they would see God as He is, which is much different than viewing Him now through the distortion of sin-scarred eyes, hearts, minds. Which is why His personal choice matters, not ours. "You did not choose Me, I chose you." Jesus conquers some of His enemies by making them His brothers because His Father chose to destroy some of His enemies by making them sons. Others will get what they deserve. The sons get what His mercy chose them for: holiness (Ephesians 1:4).

Sorry, I quoted Andrew Henry, not Andy Halsey. Mea culpa.

Chris,

You have tossed the Bible out the window, obviously.
You are discarding Jesus' teaching because you love your family more that you love Him. Jesus anticipated this. He said, "He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. And he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10:37)

This God is our God--when the heart is warmed by the light of Christ, all else is darkness. Doesn't mean the unbelief of loved ones doesn't cause me pain (see Paul at Romans 9:3) but it means God will be God whether I approve of His work or not. "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy."

Repentance and faith for you, Chris, will mean that you stop making a god in your own image and begin worshiping the God who made you in His image. He does not change. But as for you, like the grass of the field, you are here today and gone tomorrow. And to whom will you go? To the Judge of all the earth; Whose judgments are both terrible and righteous altogether; and in Whose presence there is fullness of joy forever (!) for those who by faith bow their knee to Him now.

He is the main thing. He is "a really big deal." He is the meaning that swallows every other meaning. Just as His wrath shatters every enemy, His love is a refuge against every bitterness.

Christianity has long held these three premises in tension with one another:
1. God purposes to redeem all of Creation and reconcile sinners to himself;
2. It is within God’s power to achieve the above;
3. Some sinners will never be reconciled to God and will go to Hell.

All three cannot be true. If you believe in Hell, what is your view of God? That He either a) does not purpose to redeem all of Creation and reconcile all sinners to Himself or b) It is not within his power. Either way, you have a spiritually impoverished view of God.