Do you believe that "some will burn in Hell for their sins?

[PreciousRubi]

No, I do not believe that some people will burn in hell for their sins, here's two short reasons why ...

Nobody burns anywhere for their sins, since we all commit sins everyday whether we know that we do or not. Griping and complaining are definitely sin, how many of us complain from day to day? Though we may feel we have the right to, doesn't mean we ought to. People don't spend eternity with god, only because; they refuse to accept his free gift of salvation, and accept him into their hearts as lord.

Lastly, hell and the Lake of Fire are two separate places. Hell and death and hades will be THROWN into the Lake of Fire, I thnk many people use the two places interchangeably ... when scripture definitely says they're different. Hell is a placeholder of pure torment, the lake of fire is where the eternal burning that most of us speak of will take place.

Hell...is rendered from the Greek: Hades and the Hebrew: Sheol.

They both simply mean Grave

Only Death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire (hell=hades)

James gives us some insight: 5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that the Lord, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

Those cities were consumed with fire. They were utterly destroyed, never to exist again.

[PreciousRubi]

Sorry kat8585, I should have read through the whole thread before posting...

[PreciousRubi]

Well I think the bible is very clear that there is a lake of fire where the unrighteous will spend eternity.matt 25:41,rev 14:11,rev 20:15 and rev 21:8.These are all new testament scriptures by the way.

God says that Edom will be destroyed with unquenchable fire and that the smoke of Edom's destruction will ascend up forever. Edom, however, is not still burning today. This is a figure of speech and means that the process of destruction is complete and irreversible. We see the same example in other passages such as Ezekiel 20:47-48 where God says that when His judgment comes on the land even every green tree will burn in unquenchable fire....and Jude 7 (mentioned in my previous post here)

Isaiah 34:10 It shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.

[Pilgrim7]

The teaching of an 'everlasting Hell' was not an official 'church doctrine' until the council of Constantinople in the year 553 AD, passed an ecclesiastical decree. Just another casualty of the 'falling away' by the Roman Church. Just another Pagan doctrine adopted and Christianized. Yes there is a 'lake of fire', but it is how the wicked are destroyed when Jesus returns. I could not and do not love and serve a God who would torture all who don't believe for eternity, regardless of the gravity of their sins.

Here is a little History:

THE PAGAN ORIGINS OF THE BELIEF OF HELL

The idea of hell can be traced back to Nimrod and the Babylonians, and from there it spread to the other surrounding pagan cultures. The learned people of the time knew that it was just a fable and used to control the masses through fear. The word hell comes from an Old Norse verb "to hide". It literally means any place, or some place covered over. In Norse mythology, which predates Christianity, Hell was the goddess of death and the underworld. Here are three quotes from ancient writers which give us a look at the understanding of the origins of the myth:

Polybius (203 bc - 120 bc, Greek historian of Rome): "Since the multitude is ever fickle, full of lawless desires, irrational passions and violence, there is no other way to keep them in order but by the fear and terror of the invisible world; on which account our ancestors seem to me to have acted judiciously, when they contrived to bring into the popular belief these notions of the gods, and of the infernal regions."

Strabo (64 bc - 21 ad, Greek geographer): "The multitude are restrained from vice by the punishments the gods are said to inflict upon offenders, and by those terrors and threatenings which certain dreadful words and monstrous forms imprint upon their minds. . . . For it is impossible to govern the crowd of women, and all the common rabble, by philosophical reasoning, and lead them to piety, holiness and virtue-but this must be done by superstition, or the fear of the gods, by means of fables and wonders; for the thunder, the aegis, the trident, the torches (Of the Furies), the dragons, etc., are all fables, as is also all the ancient theology."

Seneca (4 bc - 65 ad, Roman essayist and poet): "Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment-seat, etc., are all a fable, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with vain terrors."

Who shaped the modern christian version of hell?

I will say apart from Hinduism and other old Celtic religions, it was people like HOMER, VIRGIL (a Roman Poet), PLATO (a Greek philosopher), ST. AUGUSTINE (the major Catholic Theologian), DANTE, MICHELANGELO, BOSCH, GOETHE, MILTON and the like.

Homer

[kari21]

For Pilgrim7

http://www.gotquestions.org/annihilationism.html

http://www.gotquestions.org/hell-real-eternal.html

[mrs]

Dubious beginnings at best. Definitely a tradition of man, not the teaching of Jesus or the Apostles. They taught the Lake of fire, which consumes, destroys and burns up the wicked. The doctrine of an Everlasting Hell is the sister of the doctrine of an immortal soul. Both lean upon the other and fall together. Both were brought in by the 'unholy Roman Empire' in her quest to rule the world. They brought kings and kingdoms into subjection with their threatenings of Excommunication and the resultant burning in an everlasting hell. Yet even they realized that this teaching was harsh, so they developed the doctrine of Purgatory to soften the harshness of the teaching. You see even they realized that a 'Loving God' didn't want to torture sinners forever.

There is so much error in what you quoted that I wont even attempt to address it all.

But I do have a couple points:

1. Do you mean to tell me that you don't believe the human soul lives forever? If it doesn't then that must mean Christians don't live for eternity with Christ. Which would be as unBiblical as teaching against an eternal lake of fire.

2. Your loving God is not the God of the Bible. The God of the Bible is all at once holy just love and wrath. The God of the Bible, because of His holiness and purity, must punish sin. The flames of the lake of fire is not a torture but a deserved punishment.

If you say it is torture or undeserved, then you accuse God of cruelty, which we know a perfect and just God would not be.

The reason you try to explain away the clear teaching on the eternality of the lake of fire is because you, in typical human nature style, care more about humans than the holiness of God. If you once grasped the seriousness of sin you would understand why the Bible may seem harsh in it's judgment of it.

Let me requote for you what I wrote to Kat just a few posts up on this subject:

Kat,

The reason you consider an eternal punishment to be unjust and cruel, is because you are looking at sin from a human perspective instead of God's perspective. Our tendency as humans is to view sin too lightly.

Maybe the following illustration will help a little:

God created the universe and everything in it;and as He did so He put stars and planets in place by the Word of His mouth and they remained. He caused mountains to rise, and an ocean to form and He gave the ocean borders that it could not cross. All this magnificent creation you see is under His control and as Jesus showed, even the sea becomes still when He commands it.

So after creating all this splendor and greatness He turns to you and I, such little tiny insignifigant creatures that we are, and says '"Come." And we say "No!", and in defiance we go and live our lives with hate and rebellion in our hearts toward Him. While all our lives enjoying the blessings of health and prosperity that He gives, we yet curse His name, break His laws, and spurn His Son.

This, then is the great sin that is judged with hell. Sin is terrible, it is nothing but us seeking to take the place of God and be the god of our own universe and destiny. This is why pride is the root of all sin. Remember what happened to Satan when he rebelled? He was cast from heaven along with his followers for all of eternity and they will spend it in the lake of fire. Yet I have never heard someone say that it is unjust or unrighteous of God to send Satan to such a place. In seeing that man has done exactly the same thing as Satan, we recognize that hell is truly deserved and what a holy and perfect God must do.

The Bible says in many places that the lake of fire IS for eternity and that is what it will be.

[Pilgrim7]

The wages of sin are death. This is the teaching of Paul, Jesus and all of Scripture. This is what God told Adam and Eve. There are hundreds of verses that establish this beyond doubt. The only thing that is eternal is life that goes beyond the 2nd death and the 2nd death itself, which is real eternal death. It can't get much clearer than that. The 2nd death takes place in the Lake of fire. The 2nd death is eternal. Thus God makes an end of sin and sinners. They are destroyed root and branch. They are ashes on the face of the earth.

I realize that there are many who love the doctrine of eternal punishment, although I am not sure why. No one can be scared into the kingdom. You are welcome to your vengeful god, as I am to my merciful God.

Man has no soul, for man is a soul. It was the Spirit of God that gave life to man, when the Spirit of God is removed, the man is dead. Man is made up of body, mind and spirit. Take away the spirit of God and He is dead.

Scripture is very clear on when one receives immortality:

Point #1: Jesus is the only being who has walked on earth who has inherent immortality.

1tim 6:14 That you keep this commandment without spot, unrebukeable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ:

6:15 Which in his times he shall shew, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords;

6:16 Who only has immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man has seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.

Point #2: The believer is to seek after Immortality. Why would he do this if he already had it.

Rom 2:5 But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God;

2:6 Who will render to every man according to his deeds:

2:7 To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life:

Point #3: Here is when it is received:

1cor 15:51 Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, (this is at the first resurrection when Jesus returns for His people)

15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

15:53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.

15:54 So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

Point #4: Jesus Brought life and immortality to light with the Gospel, thus only those who have Christ has immortality:

2tim 1:10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has abolished death (not eternal torture), and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:

Since Jesus is the only being who walked on earth who had inherent immortality, only those in whom He dwells fully receive His inherent immortality when they are either translated or resurrected.

I would be careful before I accused anyone of so much error, Smiles. These are the teachings of the Gospel, not error, and as many have shown here, what is translated eternal fire, is not eternal fire at all, but unquenchable fire, that goes out after all is burnt up, the best example was Sodom and Gomorrah.

I will quote it again in case you don't remember:

Jude 1:6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he has reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

1:7 Even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.

This too is Scripture, not so much error. This is given by God as an example of eternal fire, it burnt up the whole city, and once everything was burnt up, it went out. Unless you can produce pictures of Sodom and Gomorrah burning today, then I would be careful of accusing those who believe these Scriptures of error.

I wish not to accuse you, but would only advise you to study the issue out more fully before judging your brothers and sisters in Christ. There are only two things that are eternal, or that last forever past judgment day, everlasting life and everlasting death.

Ruck 1b: When has a proper understanding of the meaning of eternal fire, it is the Scriptures that say so, and yes I believe the Scriptures. Yet for those who love torment and torture, the sinner does suffer in the lake of fire, in proportion to the number and gravity of his sin.

God bless you,

Dennis

[kari21]

Pilgrim7, please read the info from the links I provided, and let me know what you think.

[Pilgrim7]

Kari,

Thanks for the honest response and not condemnation.

I read the information, which is pretty much the common belief of most. Yet I respectfully disagree with it. I base all that I believe on the Scriptures and not on the teachings of man. The one against annihilation does make a good point, one which I have made many times, that the Greek word translated eternal does not mean eternal, but throughout the ages, or until the end of time. These ages are specific periods of time.

After Christ comes, and judgment takes place, time will be no more time, for eternity will begin. Eternity is not a specific period of time, but endless, having no time.

As I stated the overwhelming testimony of Scripture is that the 'wages of sin are death', which means death. God wasn't trying to fool Adam and Eve when He told them that in the day that they ate of the forbidden tree, they would die. God says what He means and means what He says. He had given them life and they chose death. Now praise God He restored them when they repented. As I stated previously there are hundreds of verses that state the ultimate death of the sinner. The Jewish people did not believe in an everlasting hell, for it was not a teaching of God. It was a doctrine stolen from Babylon and then disguised as a 'christian' teaching during the 'falling away'.

Here is what God told Adam, before making Eve, the first commandment given to man:

Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat:

2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shalt not eat of it: for in the day that you eatthereof you shall surely die.

twm Muwth (mooth); Verb, Strong #: 4191

• to die, kill, have one executed
  

Here God tells Adam the truth, that the wages of transgression of God's will is death, not even a hint at eternal torture. This is the truth of God, yet there was one in the garden that tried to deceive Eve and told her that God was a liar, and that the end result of disobedience was not death. Notice that he wasn't in hell, tending the fires and torturing the wicked, but was on the earth deceiving Eve as to the truth of God. He said that God had deceived her and that the wages of sin were not death. It seems that He is still doing the same.

Gen 3:2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, You shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest you die. (Here she quotes the word of God, which was the truth, but chose to follow Satan instead)

Ge 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die (IE: you are immortal):

Now who was it who was teaching inherent immortality against the 'Word of God'? It was not God or Jesus, it was not the Prophets or the Apostles, but it was Satan himself. Now I realize that many have been deceived on this very point and condemn no one. I once was taught this eternal torture also, but God and his word have delivered me from this abominable teaching.

I will quote just a few of the hundreds of verses stating that there are only two choices, life and death:

Deut 30:15 See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil; (no eternal torture)

30:16 In that I command you this day to love the LORD your God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments, that you may live and multiply: and the LORD your God shall bless you in the land where you go to possess it.

30:17 But if your heart turns away, so that you will not hear, but shall be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them;

30:18 I denounce to you this day, that you shall surely perish (vanish, be destroyed, be exterminated), and that you shall not prolong your days upon the land, where you passed over Jordan to go to possess it.

30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live:

Pro 11:18 The wicked work a deceitful work: but to him that sows righteousness shall have a sure reward.

11:19 As righteousness tends (leads) to life: so he that pursues evil pursues it to his own death.

Pro 12:28 In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death.

The New Testament teaches the same thing:

Rom 8:5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.

8:6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

2ti 1:10 But is now made manifest by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel:

This death was not the first death, for all experience the first death, both the righteousness and wicked. Thus is was the 2nd death in which the wicked are destroyed in the 'lake of Fire'. This is the death that is chosen by those who reject eternal life. This death is eternal, but it is death, only the flames are not eternal.

All die the first which is a result of the sin of Adam. Those who receive Christ, to dwell within them, living His life of righteousness through them, are raised at the first resurrection and given immortality at that time. Those who reject Christ and His inherent immortality, are raised from the 1st death in the 2nd resurrection for the final judgment and casting into the 'Lake of Fire' to be tormented till the end of time, which is when eternity begins, the heavens and earth made new and the saints inherit the 'New Earth' for eternity. Thus when eternity begins, the wicked have been destroyed, executed and are dead and thus they remain forever.

You see, even the devils know that the torment is only for a prescribed time and was not taking place when Jesus cast them out:

Mt 8:28 And when he was come to the other side into the country of the Gergesenes, there met him two possessed with devils, coming out of the tombs, exceedingly fierce, so that no man might pass by that way.

8:29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with you, Jesus, thou Son of God? art have you you come here to torment us before the time? (before what time, the time of torment, the Lake of fire)

Job 21:30 That the wicked are reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.

2pet 3:7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire for the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

The punishment of the wicked takes place on the 'day of judgment', also referred to as the 'great and terrible day of the Lord' in the Old Testament. No one is in hell today. No one will be in hell forever. This is a Pagan fable, not the teaching of Christ. Just try to imagine yourself being happy in heaven, with one of your children who never received Christ, being tormented by God forever and ever. What bliss? How could you love and praise Him knowing that he was torturing one whom you loved. Not only is that completely irrational, but it is also barbaric. No wonder many of the heathen laugh at those who try to convince them that 'God is love' and at the same time an 'eternal torturer'.

Thus we see a softening of the doctrine among many Protestants, just as the Catholics softened it with Purgatory. Now we are starting to hear of just spending and eternity separated from God. This however would be heaven to the sinner. They spent their whole life separated from God and would like nothing better than to be able to spend eternity apart from God.

God Bless you and thanks for the response,

Dennis

[mrs]

Just try to imagine yourself being happy in heaven, with one of your children who never received Christ, being tormented by God forever and ever. What bliss? How could you love and praise Him knowing that he was torturing one whom you loved. Not only is that completely irrational, but it is also barbaric. No wonder many of the heathen laugh at those who try to convince them that 'God is love' and at the same time an 'eternal torturer'.

You do not understand the true nature of sin. If you truly understood sin then you would be able to acknowledge that whatever God decrees in regard to it, is holy and just.

You cannot escape the doctrine of an eternal hell.