Hell Part V

“Some people are too wicked, prideful, insane, etc, so unfortunately for them, they could never be saved.”

Did you not read where Jesus healed the insane man that most people thought was dangerous and beyond help (Mk 5:20)? What about the insane Saul of Tarsus? Was that guy beyond saving? We know that’s not the case. We can’t measure with any measure of accuracy who will be saved when – there are just too many variables in life. Some are not ready, while some will take a lot more time. But remember that when the disciples asked in astonishment “Then who can be saved?” 26 And looking at them Jesus said to them, “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Mt 19:25-26, NASB). God is not limited like we are. He is willing and able to save all mankind!

Did you know that, in comparison to Sodom, God said that Israel was worse?? Jesus said “And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day. 24 Nevertheless I say to you that it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for you” (Mt 11:23-24, NASB, underline mine). Why did He say it would be “more tolerable” for Sodom on judgment day? Because, Sodom never saw Jesus. If they had, they would have repented, but not the wicked Israelite city of Capernaum. Yet, God promised that the people of both nations would come back and be given back their fortunes. From Gerry Beauchemin’s website,

“Most know that Sodom and the people in it were destroyed by fire, but not as well known is that Sodom will be restored! Ezekiel writes: “I will give back to Sodom and her daughters the good things they once had … to Samaria and her daughters the good things they once had. And with them I will also give back the good things you [Israel] once had so you may suffer disgrace and feel ashamed for all the things you have done. … Your sisters, Sodom with her daughters and Samaria with her daughters, will return to what they were before. You and your daughters will also return to what you were before.” (Ez 16:53-55 NCV, NIRV, EXB) The CEB says God “will bless” these cities. Other translations say “restore” them (ABP-LXX, AMP, DRA, WYC). Most translations say “restore their fortunes.” This seems to point to the Abrahamic promise in Gn 12:3, repeated seven times!…The judgment and restoration of these “cities” in the resurrection age only makes sense if it includes the individuals who inhabited them. Peter and Jude both show it refers to judgment in the age to come. (2Pt 2:6; Jude 7) These glorious prophecies apply to all people!”

(Source: https://hopeforallfellowship.com/Sodom/)

“Infinite God, infinite punishment”

God is infinite, but that does not mean that He won’t just “let go” eventually. Take the “blasphemy of the Spirit” (which people don’t understand what this is, either) where God is so offended, that He will not forgive that sin. But, Christians also erroneously believe that Jesus was God, too. But, He says that all the evil things said unto Him would be forgiven. So, how come, if Jesus was God, can people speak evil of Him, yet they can’t speak evil of the Holy Spirit, who is also, according to Christianity, also God?? Is Jesus somehow “less” than the Holy Spirit? Then, guess, what? He’s not God, since the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are, supposedly, co-equal. This false idea came about in the “honor code” in the Middle Ages. More on that later.

Even the “unpardonable sin” lasts for a long time (two eons), but will eventually be forgiven. Remember, Jesus cried to His Father on the cross to forgive the people crucifying Him. If He did that, and Jesus is the direct representative of God, brought down to earth by the Father Himself, why would He not forgive those who have sinned against Him? Why shouldn’t we? He told us to forgive those who sin against us. Jesus told Peter to forgive someone who sins against him in one day 70 times seven. Also, Love keeps no record of wrongs. What Scripture says that there must be eternal punishment for an eternal God? If eternal hell was a reality, wouldn’t that make God a hypocrite, since He commands and expects us to forgive our enemies, while He gets to roast His for all eternity in an eternal torture chamber! My God is not a hypocrite!!

Matthew 26:75 says, “And Peter remembered the saying of Jesus, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.” And he went out, and notice that Peter wept bitterly. In Mark 14:72, it says that "he broke down and wept." Peter was in anguish, realizing the depth of his betrayal of his Lord. Remember also that Jesus said "whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 10:33). Was Peter hopelessly lost and beyond any chance of redemption? Would he be forever denied by Christ to the Father? No, instead his sin led to a deeper understanding of God's grace and complete restoration. His weeping was temporary and resulted in repentance. Look at how Jesus fully restores him after His resurrection and how Peter responds.

John 21:15-17

When they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Feed my lambs.” He said to him a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” He said to him, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” He said to him, “Tend my sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep."

And though Jesus stated that He would deny those who denied Him, we see that such wrath and judgment was only temporary and restorative. Mercy, as the book of James tells us, "triumphs over judgment" (James 2:13). Also, Jesus said that the Father’s Eyes are on the sparrow, and that not one falls outside of His Will (Mt 10:29) and that we are worth many sparrows. What does that mean? Since we are made in the image of the invisible God, our value is priceless. We are of immeasurable worth!

“God is Love, yes, but don’t forget He’s also Just”

I completely agree! God is both Perfect Love and Perfect Justice! Therefore, He won’t let any sin “slip by.” All sin carries with it consequences, which includes punishment. Just because you committed sin in this life and did not pay for it, doesn’t mean that’s how it’s going to stay. What about when a believer sins big time? God told Paul to kick the immoral brother out of the Corinthian church for sleeping with his father’s wife, so that he may be handed over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his soul might be saved (1Cor 5:4-5). Clearly, sin cannot be tolerated, according to Scripture (Rom 6:1-2)!

But, the “just” aspect is exactly one of the reasons why I don’t advocate for everlasting conscious suffering. How can you punish anyone for a lifetime (let’s say 70-100 years) of crimes with eternal punishment?? Always remember that God hates injustice. In Proverbs 11:1, it says, “Dishonest scales are an abomination to the Lord, But a just weight is His delight” (NKJV, italics mine). In our own justice system, the punishment must fit the crime, not the victim! As the Scripture says, “Shall mortal man be more just than God? shall a man be more pure than his maker?” (Job 4:17, KJV). The OT Scripture of “eye for an eye” attests to how God punishes – through limited action that fit the scope of the crime no matter who was the victim, and no more. Before then, if you gouged out someone’s eye or someone lost a tooth because of you, even accidentally, they would kill you. Or, if you killed someone, completely by accident, people could raid your entire village, slaughter your neighbors, and burn the village down, among other things. This way, only the person that committed the killing was killed in return – not his father, not his mother, not his sister or brother. It was a way to atone for any wrong doing. The Israelites actually took away the number of lashes a criminal would receive so that they did not “go over” the amount of punishment the suspect warranted.

Back to my explanation of the “honor code” baloney that they did in the Dark Ages. In medieval times, if a serf insulted a noble, like the serf loses his temper and slaps the nobleman, that nobleman could not recover his honor by slapping him back. He couldn’t even recover it even if he killed the serf! Why this was was because that nobleman had much more “honor” than that serf. And so, to avenge himself, as well as his “honor,” he would then need to go up to the serf’s lord, and slap him in the face! Only then, will his “honor” be restored. Believe it or not, this was how things were in those times. It was silly to think that a human life was worth more than another human life. It should never be this way...and God does not work this way. He punishes according to the sins committed, not to the one(s) they were committed against. And, if we are in Christ, there is no condemnation, according to Romans 8!

“Jesus taught more about hell than he did about Heaven”

Did He now? Well, He did – 12 times more, according to legendary preacher Oral Roberts. Wow, with a name like that, it must be true, right? No. According to a website:

“...it’s clearly false that Jesus referred to hell more than to heaven. Remember that for virtually every reference to hell that we just saw in Matthew’s Gospel, it was coupled with a reference to the fate of the people of God as well (the same applies to the use of gehenna in Matthew 18). So the count is already about even when we add up those contexts that refer to hell. But there are plenty of other texts that refer to the wondrous fate of God’s people as well. The list of examples in the beatitudes of Matthew 5 alone would tip the scales heavily. Then we have the treasures in heaven that await us in Matthew 6, in others Gospels we have the party thrown for the returned prodigal son, the promise that we have eternal life and will be raised up at the last day. The reality is, Jesus said very little about “hell” indeed, and certainly more about what he came to give us.”

(Source: http://www.rightreason.org/2010/did-jesus-preach-hell-more-than-heaven/¹)

Taken from another website, we read:

I have heard it said by some very well-known preachers that Jesus spoke more about Hell than He did about Heaven but what are the facts? As a young minister, I had heard this so-called fact repeated many times but every time I heard it repeated something didn’t sit right with me. Many years ago, I decided to do some research to find out for myself if this was true. What I discovered was there are 1900 plus verses in the four Gospels that contain Jesus’ words. Surprisingly, only about 60 of those verses, or just three percent of them, might be construed as either directly or indirectly referring to Hell.

On the other hand, there are more than three times as many verses in the Gospels in which Jesus references Heaven, eternal life, or his coming kingdom: 192 verses in all, or almost 10%.

So, the evidence suggests that Jesus didn’t speak about Hell more than Heaven. In truth, he talked about Heaven three times more than He did about Hell!

...So, Jesus spoke about Hell three percent of His messages and Heaven ten percent. I believe that makes it safe to say that the other 87% of the time He spoke about life, relationships with God and people and how to navigate this life in victory. Jesus wasn’t obsessed with people knowing about Hell, His goal was for them to know His father. It isn’t the fear of Hell that saves you, it is knowing Jesus that saves you!

(Source:https://medium.com/@edelliott/did-jesus-talk-more-about-hell-than-he-did-heaven-7e6100b4df82)

So, no! He didn’t preach more about “hell” than He did about Heaven. He didn’t speak all that much about Heaven, either, looks like. He was more concerned with how we lived here on earth! Were we loving to each other? Was our speech seasoned with salt? The writer of the second quote says, “It isn’t the fear of Hell that saves you, knowing Jesus saves you!” I love that! I think I’ve mentioned this before, but quite a few people have condemned me to eternal hellfire for not believing in it. My response is usually, “Really? I’m going to go to a place I don’t even believe in? Where does it say in the Bible belief in everlasting punishment was necessary for salvation?” They usually can’t answer me after that.

A scripture often quoted to support eternal punishment is Mt 25:31-46. First, it needs to be said that this is a judgment of the nations, not individuals. Second, the word aion, mistranslated as eternal in our English Bibles, sets a limited duration of time. “Oh,” but the infernalist will say, “if the punishment is not eternal, then neither is the Life! Gotcha!” Not so fast, there! St Augustine, who, as I stated earlier, did NOT know Greek, thought in much the same way. He was quoted as saying, “For Christ, in the very same passage, included both punishment and life in one and the same sentence...If both are ‘eternal,’ it follows necessarily that either both are to be taken as long-lasting but finite, or both as endless and perpetual.” The term “aion” here is key. The “life” being referred to here is not the “eternal” life as we have been taught. Jesus was speaking to the Jews, and all the Jews were looking forward to was “the Kingdom,” the millenial 1,000 year reign of the Messiah. NO Jew wanted to miss that. It would be the most glorious time when God’s people would reign over the whole earth. This is the “life” that He was referring to – life in the 1,000 year reign. It did not mean that their life would end afterwards, but Christ likely meant specifically life in this most glorious and peaceful time period. And so it shall be with punishment. Zender puts it this way,

“Scripture speaks of eonian life. There is a verse, however, which says that your body will be changed

and made into an immortal body (1 Corinthians 15:53-54). Immortal people can’t die. So yes, you live

forever, but not because of the term “eonian life.” You live forever because God will make you

immortal (sooner than everyone else). The term “eonian life” applies only to your life during the

upcoming two glorious eons. When these eons end, your eonian life ends, but certainly not your

immortality.

Think of it this way: When you passed through your teenage years, you were called, “a teenager.”

When you turned 20, you were no longer a teenager. Does that mean you were no longer a person?

Did you die at age 20? No—you just lost the particular appellation, “teenager.” Likewise, when the

eons end (and they will), it doesn’t mean you die. It just means you lose the particular appellation,

“eonian life.” How can you still be a teenager when you’re 20? How can you still have eonian life

when the eons end?”

(Source: What is a Believer? by Martin Zender, underline mine)

Anyway, here’s a list of passages where Jesus supposedly spoke about hell (NASB, underline mine):

1. Mt 5:22, 29, 30 – “But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell…If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. 30 If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell.”

2. Mt 10:28 – “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

3. Mt 11:23 – “And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would have remained to this day.”

4. Mt 16:18 – “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

5. Mt 18:8,9 – “If your hand or your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; it is better for you to enter life crippled or lame, than to have two hands or two feet and be cast into the eternal fire. 9 If your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it from you. It is better for you to enter life with one eye, than to have two eyes and be cast into the fiery hell.”

6. Mt 23:15,33 – “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves…You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?”

7. Lk 16:23 – “In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus in his bosom.”

8. Lk 12:5 – “But I will warn you whom to fear: fear the One who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell; yes, I tell you, fear Him!”

9. Lk 10:15 – “And you, Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You will be brought down to Hades!”

10. Mk 9:43-47 – “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than, having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, 44 [where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.] 45 If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than, having your two feet, to be cast into hell, 46 [where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.] 47 If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell.”

That’s it, folks. Only 10 times – and some of these are duplicates (remember that the Gospels are accounts of what happened and some of the same stories are seen in each). So, in total, it’s more like seven. Seven times…is that really it? And, did you notice, not once did He speak about Hell in the Gospel of John! A website has a more concise answer,

“The word hell appears (54) times in the King James Version bible; 31 times in the Old Testament, and 23 in the New Testament. Of the 23 times hell is used in the New Testament, 16 times the usage was accounted to Christ. The words punishment, judgment, and damnation appear 42 times and many of these are also accounted to Christ. However, the majority of the accounts of these words are in the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, & Luke) which all give accounts of some of the same messages. Irregardless of this fact, I will count all of these uses anyway. So we have a total of 58 uses of hell, damnation, punishment, and judgment. Would you believe that the words heaven, kingdom, kingdom of heaven, paradise, kingdom of God is used some 242 times with the majority of these references accounted to Christ? People are infatuated with this teaching of hell and eternal punishment. You see the numbers; believe what you will but I chose to believe the truth.”

(Source: https://therealgospelofchrist.com/the-origin-of-hell/)

So, actually, Jesus spoke 4 times more about Heaven than He did about Hell! Let’s stop saying what isn’t true without verifying it for ourselves first, okay?

 

 

1I highly recommend reading the entire article!