When all has been said and done will God be loving those who are suffering his punishment in hell?

Question

How can be bear to see those he loves suffering eternally?
If he could stop their suffering but does not, how is that love?
God must not have loved those who end up in hell, but hell was prepared for those very ones?
These questions are asked within the context of Biblical theology, not other religions.

Answer 1

Because He gave us all free will, a choice, He loves us but we have been told the consequences/rewards for what we do. He can't make threats and not follow through.

Answer 2

God loves us so much that He gave us a choice. He dosent force us to follow Him. He wants all to spend eternity with Him, but because of His great love for us, He allows us a free will. If a person goes to hell, it is because they deliberately choose not to... well... choose Him.
Lets say a university offered you a full ride scholarship. Tuition, books, board, everything. And you turned it down. Later in life, you ended up on welfare, because you didnt have the skills it would take for a good paying job. Can you blame the university for not caring enough about you to give you the degree you would have recieved? Nope. It was YOUR CHOICE to turn it down. Why do men so often blame God for their own foolish mistakes?
Choose ye this day whom ye will serve.

Answer 3

Love is one attribute of God. Justice is another attribute of God. The penalty for sin is death. Because He is just, someone has to pay the penalty. God can't just look the other way and let sin pass. That would be as much against the character of God as to not love. But, because of His grace, He sent his son into the world to pay that penalty for you and for me. Now you and I have a choice. We can accept the gift or reject the gift, the choice belongs to us. If we accept it, then we are Justified in the sight of God, and the penalty for our sin has been "paid in full". If we reject the gift, the we are going to stand before God on our own merits and works, which will condemn us to eternal damnation.

So, God is Love and God is Just. He gave the ultimate sacrifice and we either accept that or reject that.

Answer 4

While we were yet sinners, Christ dies for us - died and achieved for us salvation. The sinner can derive benefit from Christ's death by giving up his sinful life. Christ's teachings are mostly aimed at bringing a sinner home. If the sinner does not listen to this and dies a sinful death meritting a 'life in hell' then it is the sinner's problem and not God's. The sinner was given enough opportunities to change his life and even the consequences of his sinful life has been shown to him. Those who continue in sin, reject God's love, and come under God's displeasure and wrath. So if they go to Hell, then they deserve it. God is not responsible for it. YES, GOD WAS KIND ENOUGH TO GIVE HIM UMPTEEN NUMBER OF CHANCES WHICH THE SINNER REJECTED AND WENT TO HELL.

Answer 5

Hell:

Definition: The word “hell” is found in many Bible translations. In the same verses other translations read “the grave,” “the world of the dead,” and so forth. Other Bibles simply transliterate the original-language words that are sometimes rendered “hell”; that is, they express them with the letters of our alphabet but leave the words untranslated. What are those words? The Hebrew she’ohl′ and its Greek equivalent hai′des, which refer, not to an individual burial place, but to the common grave of dead mankind; also the Greek ge′en·na, which is used as a symbol of eternal destruction. However, both in Christendom and in many non-Christian religions it is taught that hell is a place inhabited by demons and where the wicked, after death, are punished (and some believe that this is with torment).

Does the Bible indicate whether the dead experience pain?

Eccl. 9:5, 10: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all . . . All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol,* the place to which you are going.” (If they are conscious of nothing, they obviously feel no pain.) (*“Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB; “the grave,” KJ, Kx; “hell,” Dy; “the world of the dead,” TEV.)

Psalms 146:4: “His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts* do perish.” (*“Thoughts,” KJ, 145:4 in Dy; “schemes,” JB; “plans,” RS, TEV.)

Does the Bible indicate that the soul survives the death of the body?

Ezekiel 18:4: “The soul* that is sinning—it itself will die.” (*“Soul,” KJ, Dy, RS, NE, Kx; “the man,” JB; “the person,” TEV.)
“The concept of ‘soul,’ meaning a purely spiritual, immaterial reality, separate from the ‘body,’ . . . does not exist in the Bible.”—La Parole de Dieu (Paris, 1960), Georges Auzou, professor of Sacred Scripture, Rouen Seminary, France, p. 128.

“Although the Hebrew word nefesh [in the Hebrew Scriptures] is frequently translated as ‘soul,’ it would be inaccurate to read into it a Greek meaning. Nefesh . . . is never conceived of as operating separately from the body. In the New Testament the Greek word psyche is often translated as ‘soul’ but again should not be readily understood to have the meaning the word had for the Greek philosophers. It usually means ‘life,’ or ‘vitality,’ or, at times, ‘the self.’”—The Encyclopedia Americana (1977), Vol. 25, p. 236.

What sort of people go to the Bible hell?

Does the Bible say that the wicked go to hell?

Psalms 9:17, KJ: “The wicked shall be turned into hell,* and all the nations that forget God.” (*“Hell,” 9:18 in Dy; “death,” TEV; “the place of death,” Kx; “Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB, NW.)

Does the Bible also say that upright people go to hell?

Job 14:13, Dy: “[Job prayed:] Who will grant me this, that thou mayst protect me in hell,* and hide me till thy wrath pass, and appoint me a time when thou wilt remember me?” (God himself said that Job was “a man blameless and upright, fearing God and turning aside from bad.”—Job 1:8.) (*“The grave,” KJ; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB, NW.)

Acts 2:25-27, KJ: “David speaketh concerning him [Jesus Christ], . . . Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,* neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” (The fact that God did not “leave” Jesus in hell implies that Jesus was in hell, or Hades, at least for a time, does it not?) (*“Hell,” Dy; “death,” NE; “the place of death,” Kx; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Hades,” AS, RS, JB, NW.)

Does anyone ever get out of the Bible hell?

Revelation 20:13, 14, KJ: “The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell* delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire.” (So the dead will be delivered from hell. Notice also that hell is not the same as the lake of fire but will be cast into the lake of fire.) (*“Hell,” Dy, Kx; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Hades,” NE, AS, RS, JB, NW.)

Why is there confusion as to what the Bible says about hell?

“Much confusion and misunderstanding has been caused through the early translators of the Bible persistently rendering the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades and Gehenna by the word hell. The simple transliteration of these words by the translators of the revised editions of the Bible has not sufficed to appreciably clear up this confusion and misconception.”—The Encyclopedia Americana (1942), Vol. XIV, p. 81.

Translators have allowed their personal beliefs to color their work instead of being consistent in their rendering of the original-language words. For example: (1) The King James Version rendered she’ohl′ as “hell,” “the grave,” and “the pit”; hai′des is therein rendered both “hell” and “grave”; ge′en·na is also translated “hell.” (2) Today’s English Version transliterates hai′des as “Hades” and also renders it as “hell” and “the world of the dead.” But besides rendering “hell” from hai′des it uses that same translation for ge′en·na. (3) The Jerusalem Bible transliterates hai′des six times, but in other passages it translates it as “hell” and as “the underworld.” It also translates ge′en·na as “hell,” as it does hai′des in two instances. Thus the exact meanings of the original-language words have been obscured.

Is there eternal punishment for the wicked?

Matthew 25:46, KJ: “These shall go away into everlasting punishment [“lopping off,” Int; Greek, ko′la·sin]: but the righteous into life eternal.” (The Emphatic Diaglott reads “cutting-off” instead of “punishment.” A footnote states: “Kolasin . . . is derived from kolazoo, which signifies, 1. To cut off; as lopping off branches of trees, to prune. 2. To restrain, to repress. . . . 3. To chastise, to punish. To cut off an individual from life, or society, or even to restrain, is esteemed as punishment;—hence has arisen this third metaphorical use of the word. The primary signification has been adopted, because it agrees better with the second member of the sentence, thus preserving the force and beauty of the antithesis. The righteous go to life, the wicked to the cutting off from life, or death. See 2 Thess. 1.9.”)

2 Thessalonians 1:9, RS: “They shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction* and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” (*“Eternal ruin,” NAB, NE; “lost eternally,” JB; “condemn them to eternal punishment,” Kx; “eternal punishment in destruction,” Dy.)

Jude 7, KJ: “Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, 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.” (The fire that destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah ceased burning thousands of years ago. But the effect of that fire has been lasting; the cities have not been rebuilt. God’s judgment, however, was against not merely those cities but also their wicked inhabitants. What happened to them is a warning example. At Luke 17:29, Jesus says that they were “destroyed”; Jude 7 shows that the destruction was eternal.)

What does the Bible say the penalty for sin is?

Romans 6:23: “The wages sin pays is death.”

After one’s death, is he still subject to further punishment for his sins?

Romans 6:7: “He who has died has been acquitted from his sin.”

Is eternal torment of the wicked compatible with God’s personality?

Jer. 7:31: “They [apostate Judeans] have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, a thing that I had not commanded and that had not come up into my heart.” (If it never came into God’s heart, surely he does not have and use such a thing on a larger scale.)

Illustration: What would you think of a parent who held his child’s hand over a fire to punish the child for wrongdoing? “God is love.” (1 John 4:8.) Would he do what no right-minded human parent would do? Certainly not!

What is the origin of the teaching of hellfire?

In ancient Babylonian and Assyrian beliefs the “nether world . . . is pictured as a place full of horrors, and is presided over by gods and demons of great strength and fierceness.” (The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston, 1898, Morris Jastrow, Jr., p. 581) Early evidence of the fiery aspect of Christendom’s hell is found in the religion of ancient Egypt. (The Book of the Dead, New Hyde Park, N.Y., 1960, with introduction by E. A. Wallis Budge, pp. 144, 149, 151, 153, 161) Buddhism, which dates back to the 6th century B.C.E., in time came to feature both hot and cold hells. (The Encyclopedia Americana, 1977, Vol. 14, p. 68) Depictions of hell portrayed in Catholic churches in Italy have been traced to Etruscan roots.—La civiltà etrusca (Milan, 1979), Werner Keller, p. 389.

But the real roots of this God-dishonoring doctrine go much deeper. The fiendish concepts associated with a hell of torment slander God and originate with the chief slanderer of God (the Devil, which name means “Slanderer”), the one whom Jesus Christ called “the father of the lie.”—John 8:44.

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