Charles Spurgeon on His Mother’s Prayers

If we choose not-Jesus we are tonremted forever, either in fire or in separation from God. Mike If I only went to hell for three years for stealing a cookie, what would that say about God? If I only went to hell for six billion years for stealing a cookie, what would that say about God? It would say God is finite. David If God sends you to hell even for 30 seconds for stealing a cookie then I’d say he has some issues. MikeAgreed.Hell remains a problematic concept for me. I definitely oppose any view of hell as a fiery eternal torture. Retributive punishment, having no redemptive purpose, does not cohere with a God of love. As a kid, did you ever see how close you could hold your hand to a fire before you couldn't take the pain anymore? Remember the sharpness of the pain, the intensity and this from a distance! Or the people who jumped out of the towers on 9/11 rather than be burnt by the intense flames? How much more painful and cruel would a fiery hell be?Yeah I know how Christians respond to this: God is holy also, and must punish sin. But he doesn't. Certain theologies have abstracted justice into something that constrains God, so that God has to punish all wrong doing in order to maintain the moral order of the universe or his internal justice. They even say that the punishment of sinners adds to the glory of God. Bunk. This has led to the popular but misguided penal satisfaction view of atonement in which Jesus is punished by God in our place, so that his justice might be satisfied. But contrary to popular Christian thought, this is not the only view of the atonement.One response to this is that it is all nonsense, so let's be done with it and not worry about the details. Could be the way to go. Another possibility is that this view of hell and God and salvation is not biblical I know, a big who cares from those who view the Bible as only a collection of ancient superstitious myths. But for those who are wrestling with considering the Bible to be in some way normative to the Christian faith (I agree modern notions of inerrancy are untenable), the biblical portrayal of God is important. This God is shown to punish in order to transform lives, but not for the sake of punishment itself. Corrective punishment, not retributive. This God is self-sacrificial and somehow takes the sin of the world upon himself in a supreme act of identification with humanity and lifts us up to become like him. The cross is not about God violently enabling himself to forgive us without upsetting the balance of cosmic justice.So what the hell is hell all about? I see it as separation from God. But as Mike points out, this still sucks as an eternal destiny for a choice made in the flash of one lifetime. C.S. Lewis wrote a book titled the Great Divorce which depicted hell as a grey, drab world. Every day a bus would come that would take willing passengers to heaven. No one ever got on for various reasons. I tend to think that hell does not have to be eternal. That the God who loves and wants reconciliation continues drawing those separated from him. The biblical support for the eternal duration of hell is far from definite. Keeping the door open is more consistent with the God revealed in Jesus.My last point is I really don't think Jesus was looking for people to follow him out of fear of hell. If we say that the threat of hell is the only motivator for decent behavior then we are in trouble.

ZJuUc2 sjikybjmhsko

HxeLwy , [url=http://vqtfvelfgyjh.com/]vqtfvelfgyjh[/url], [link=http://wspcedjhgbtr.com/]wspcedjhgbtr[/link], http://oonbzfycnids.com/

CKRXaj msynyysmobxz

5a30n4 , [url=http://ddqmnvxkfpws.com/]ddqmnvxkfpws[/url], [link=http://selsqnmcomzj.com/]selsqnmcomzj[/link], http://mzaobgnmwteh.com/