Originally posted by sonshipSo why are you acting like you didn't realize this? Or did you not think LemonJello would fit into one of those categories? Your just not making any sense.
P Knob,
For the record, I know there are some people who argue Jesus never lived.
Of course I know many say "Well, he lived but is not divine., is not God or Son of God."
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I get that bit. Do you think they are 'self deceived'?
I think they have some powerful help from someone else so that it is not all "self" deception.
But I think I am going back in this post, to the premise of this thread. The basic problem of this thread is are eternal punishment and a loving God compatible ?
Can a God of love assign anyone to an eternal punishment ?
This is a good question.
And at this time I am persuaded that the answer is Yes. Eternal punishment and a God of great love are not contradictory.
The ones who are so eternally punished are the one on whom the great love of God made no impression. Love from God did not impress them when Christ out of His love for the guilty sinner, came under the divine wrath in their place. In God's love He SO LOVED ... that the one perfection in man He had He gave for this cause - to bear what as too heavy for the sinner to bear.
To those who are saved in God's love God removes the disease of sinning and displays its result to deter what other worlds are to come in the everlasting future. His love for those who chose Him calls for Him to remove forever the curses of sin.
But why must it be a removal by eternal punishment ?
The acts of sinning continue because the character was not sanctified in God's salvation. The continued sinning draws down the continued punishment.
Probably the lost will be so occupied with their sufferings that it will restrict them from furthermore carrying out crimes against one another in the place to which they all are assigned.
This judgment of God then is really benevolent - perfectly consistent with goodness to the SAVED. The welfare of the offender is hopeless. The welfare of others is consulted in the destruction of the hopeless rebels.
Sin is seen forever as an awful and terrible a thing.
Revolt against God and rejection of God's giving love is seen as an awful thing.
The ones receiving God's love then will look down into that eternal grave of gloom and gaze at the impenitent felons. The wailings of their despair will deter worlds in the new heaven and new earth in which God promises righteousness dwells.
The love of God necessitates the hatred of sin and its revolting unbelief and rejection of God. Since long suffering and invitation to pardon has only served to harden the hearts of some sinners, the welfare of the saved is cared for by manifestation that sin cannot win against the Ultimate Righteous God.
God's great love and His great wrath against the irreconcilable to God's love are not incompatible.
Originally posted by sonshipI think they have some powerful help from someone else so that it is not all "self" deception.I get that bit. Do you think they are 'self deceived'?
I think they have some powerful help from someone else so that it is not all "self" deception.
But I think I am going back in this post, to the premise of this thread. The basic problem of this thread is are eternal punishment and a loving God compatible ?
Can a God of lov ...[text shortened]... ve and His great wrath against the irreconcilable to God's love are not incompatible.
Satan?
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Originally posted by whodeyRobert Govett effectively convey's the disappointment of eternal damnation.
I personally have no problem with the concept of hell. After all, there is hell on earth, we all have seen it. So why should it stop here?
The larger question is why is their suffering?
"O thou blasphemed but most indulgent Lord God! Hell itself is a refuge, if it hide me from Thy frown! You can guess (can you not?) what would be the state of a soul given up to all sinful passions. Hatred of God, hatred of its fellows, loving none, loved by none, full of self-loathing, and contempt!
All the specious toys, the gilded deceits that led astray, now beheld in their true value. O that emptiness! The bait is off; the hook alone felt! The mirage-picture is gone: only the fiery sand and the desert are around forever! No palm, no blade of grass, no drop of water! The paint and tinsel are scortched away, the naked iron seen. The hurry and whirl, glitter, noise, and spangles of the fair and the theatre are all stripped off, the hollowness of the cheat stares you in the face! The drunkard is away from his cups, the miser is afar from his gold! Memory (magic mirror!) only conjures up pictures of sin. 'Tis ' a hornet's nest of a thousand stings !'
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From Robert Govett's message on "Eternal Punishment"
The Lord's design is to show, in the lost His terribleness; as in the saved, His mercy. He who knows the creature He has made, will torment with exquisite misery, with extremity of woe will tear the nerves He has framed. After long patience, and the tearful beseeching of mercy, justice, with tearless eye and gripe of steel, will be set to make examples to the universe, of the awfulness of an offended God! of the terribleness of a Righteous Governor! The eye of justice will be fixed, not on the writhings of the lashed, but on the number of scourges to be given by law.
Are you willing, choosing to be one of these? Is all this eternal? You might refuse to listen, and prefer your lusts, if punishment were for years on years of definite amount. But you cannot believe in infinite, endless misery, and yet go on your way of sin! How long is eternity? Take your longest standard, and try to measure it! Break one after another, and give up the attempt in despair!
And will that fire have for you peculiar fierceness, - will be bitter sorrow that dwells there have a peculiar poignancy, because you have heard the Gospel? Because the way of escape to you was once open? Because you will remember, that once you were wooed to enter, and nothing hindered but the choice of a perverse heart? That God would, and you would not? Will you compare, to your endless dismay, God then stooping to beseech, and now arisen to destroy? Once proffering the healing cup of life, then treading you (lacerated worm!) beneath His heel of power, and you compelled to confess that all is justly deserved - your own earnings - wages told out according to previous agreement? You despised God once: to Him useless, save only to burn.
... God against you ! No escape from His eye of fire, no refuge from His frown, no hiding from His just displeasure ! The Holy God against you for ever ! His holiness at war unceasingly with your unholiness ! His unchangeableness of goodness in eternal collision with your unchangeableness of wickedness. The Merciful One insulted beyond forgiveness. The Lamb become the Lion, to roar and tear for ever. His eye to kindle the reproaches of conscience, His terrors to avenge ! and to feel it was your choice ! Justly sent on His part ! Righteously to be endured on yours!
"Vengeance is mine !" And you to be an example of it for evermore ! His settled purpose, His declared sentence, His terrible power ! Long as God shall be able to smite, so you to suffer ! He has pronounced you "cursed" - who shall bless ? The curse encircles - penetrates you - grapples you : the iron enters your soul.
God, to the saved, sun of joy ! To the lost, hurricane of woe !
And you will dare all this ? Will you peril it by dismissing the consideration of it to some undefined time ? Are you already on your way to this pit ? Each moment provoking this consequence ?
Rise ! Repent !
Cease sowing these bitter seeds ! Put back into your basket the handful of winged thistle-down you were going to cast into the ground ! Or you may be cut off in the act !
Strike work with your present master ! Cease working, if you would escape the terrible wages you are earning. They are mounting with each day's labor. They are reckoned in a book which makes no omissions, no false entries. If cut off in your service of the devil, his are your wages ; and to his fire you must go.
Flee the pit, to whose edge you are come ! There is but One who can save you ! But One who can pay your debts. But One who can turn back the police in quest of you.
Rise ! beseech of Him so to do ! Jesus, full of tenderness, is loudest in His descriptions of hell. The Judge warns you most strongly of its awfulness. He who would save, would most alarm you !
The Deceiver would rock you to sleep !
Rise ! Flee this hour !
The ones receiving God's love then will look down into that eternal grave of gloom and gaze at the impenitent felons. The wailings of their despair will deter worlds in the new heaven and new earth in which God promises righteousness dwells.
What if those wailing are your parents, brothers, sisters, friends or family? Do you think this will have an impact on your peace? Your joy?
Originally posted by checkbaiterIt is impossible that I should have cared for them more than the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.
Only the spotless Redeemer cared enough to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Only the Redeemer was willing to drink that cup. You and I did not drink that cup for the sinner. We love, no doubt. We cannot love as He loves.
(I'm beginning to write like Robert Govett now)
"I love you. But Jesus loves you best."
And the people of the New Jerusalem conformed to the image of Christ - to think as He now, to feel as He now, to see things through the eyes of God as Jesus did.
The saved are conformed in soul to be like Him. Our attitude will be His because we are being transformed into the same image.
Originally posted by sonshipYes, but this is why I have a problem with this. I would have a problem watching my mother and father in anguish, gnashing of teeth, etc. It just does not fit. I wish you would continue to pursue this study with an open mind and look at both sides thoroughly before committing yourself either way. The wording of the bible still says they would need eternal life. God would have to continue to wipe away my tears forever. I learned a long time ago to keep an open mind on topics like this, but I am very close to being totally convinced of annihilation.
It is [b] impossible that I should have cared for them more than the Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.
Only the spotless Redeemer cared enough to become sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. Only the Redeemer was willing to drink that cup. You and I did not drink that cup for the sinner. We love, no doubt. W ...[text shortened]... o be like Him. Our attitude will be His because we are being transformed into the same image.[/b]