In order to be in hell forever, you'd have to have eternal life, right?

Question

So Christians who teach that hell burns forever are incorrect, right? I mean, to be in hell forever you'd HAVE to be ALIVE forever, and the Bible says that only those who are IN CHRIST will have eternal life.

SO the real punishment must be eternal DEATH, not eternal SUFFERING.

Doesn't that make sense?

Answer 1

The Bible clearly gives a limit to the burning of hell fire.

"There is a day coming that will burn like a hot furnace, and all the proud and evil people will be like straw. On that day they will be completely burned up so that not a root or branch will be left," says the Lord All-Powerful." (Malachi 4:1 NCV)

The Bible says that the evil will be burned up and nothing will be left of them!

Answer 2

You are absolutely right. Hell was a concept that was interpolated into Christianity well after Jesus and the Apostles. Biblical study reveals that the original apostles believed that after death, you lie in the grave or the metaphorical realms of Hades and Sheol (both simply meaning "grave" or "world of the dead", with no connotations of reward or punishment). You wouldn't receive any judgment until the end of the world which would involve three things: 1. the return of Jesus, 2. The resurrection of the dead, 3. the final judgment.

Furthermore, the Bible says many, many times that the wicked will be destroyed, consumed, cut off, etc. etc. The wages of sin is death, and so on. If God is life, and one is eternally and entirely cut off from life, one does not exist. Period. Hell is such a backwards, primitive concept but sadly most Christians don't bother to take the time to analyze the Bible and just accept whatever their tradition tells them.

The idea of there existing a soul separate from the body is foreign to the Hebrew scriptures. The human being was a unity of limited physical body and unlimited breath acquired from God. One does not exist without the other. The Bible tells us the world to come will have a physical characteristic, not this intangible, ethereal quality that so many Christians believe. The notion of a soul as some ghostlike entity residing within you that escapes from your body once you die was taken from Greek philosophers, not Biblical prophets or Jesus or any of the apostles.

Answer 3

This is an intellegent question. The first point to understand is that you are an eternal spiritual person that is having a temporary material experience.
The presentation of eternal punishment, hell, damnation, fire, brimstone and the like are an impetus presented by the church in previous centuries to convince the pagans (peasants) to take up spiritual life, unfortunately people are much too well educated these days to accept such scare tactics.

The concept of the devil is also part of this theological nonsense, the image of the devil evolved from the Greek God Pan and the pagan God of the animals, the term Satan means adversary, which is anyone opposed to God, so all of this must be put into perspective.

There is certainly a hellish condition and varying degrees of suffering, there is a devilish mentality and a devilish situation, but these are a product of individuals who mis-use their own free will and attempt to abdicate responsibility by blaming a conceptual entity such as the devil. Actually no-one can seriously oppose God, God is absolute.

So, it is mis-use of your own free will that brings you to the material world, to exist separately from your real home, the Spiritual world, that is hell, however through proper choice you can revive or ressurect your Spiritual body, that is within the material body through Spiritual activities, or remain in the material world transmigrating from one material body to another, based on your own activities and desires that separate you from God. This choice has to be made by each individual, to discuss further:-Sriman Sankarshan Das Adhikari ([e-mail])

Answer 4

Well your close, almost right.

The soul is the same dose not matter if you go to heaven or hell.
Those in hell and not judged there there because there is no other place to put them.

After the 1000 years of Christ will be the judgment.
All will be then judged. Those found wanting (guilty of sin) will be thrown into the lake of fire.
There they are destroyed, Dead, gone, blotted out.

now the lake will be there forever a good place to dump trash but nothing alive is in the lake of fire.

Answer 5

IT DOES MAKE SENSE AND YOUR EYES ARE BECOMING UNVIELED WHICH IS VERY GOOD.
What is the purpose of the resurrection if the saints are already in heaven with Christ and the wicked in hell?
Nor is there any evidence that there is some special place called "paradise" where Christians stay in transit until the resurrection when they join Christ in heaven.
The uniform testimony of Scripture is that the dead remain in their graves until the time of the resurrection.
John 5:28,29 says, "Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."
Daniel 12:2 says, "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." First Corinthians 15:52 shows that it is at the resurrection that the saved will gain immortality, and before then the dead are asleep in their graves. "For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable....For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable and this mortal nature must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.' O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"
First Thessalonians 4:15 refers to the dead as being "asleep." The text goes on to say that when the Lord returns "the dead in Christ will rise first" (verse 16). Now if the dead go immediately to be with the Lord at death, how can they only rise at the last trump?
The Scriptures show that at the resurrection it is the entire person who is raised, not merely his body. "The dead in Christ" are the persons who die in Christ, not just their bodies.
Look at Job 14:12 to see unequivocally that it is the person himself, not just a part of him, who rises when Christ returns: "So man [his entire being] lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake; or be roused out of his sleep."
This takes us to the next point: that the Bible consistently refers to death as a sleep.
The Sleep of the Dead
If death does not indicate unconsciousness why would the analogy of sleep be meaningful? The Psalmist refers to the "sleep of death" (Psalm 13:3). Psalm 115:17 says, "The dead do not praise the Lord, nor do any that go down into silence." Matthew 27:52 states that "the tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised." In Acts 7:60 we read of Stephen who "fell asleep." Second Peter 3:4 speaks of those who ask, "Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things have continued...."
Other equally clear texts show unmistakably that the dead are unconscious. Psalm 146:4 says, "When his [man's] breath departs he returns to his earth; on that very day his plans ["thoughts"-KJV] perish." The Psalmist asks, "Dost thou work wonders for the dead? Do the shades rise up to praise thee?....Are thy wonders known in the darkness, or thy saving help in the land of forgetfulness?" (Psalm 88:10,12).
The idea that the saints are having a great time praising the Lord and playing on harps finds no support in the Sacred Scriptures! The dead are asleep; they are in silence, in the land of forgetfulness! Psalm 6:5 says pointedly, "For in death there is no remembrance of thee; in Sheol [the grave] who can give thee praise?"

Answer 6

No, as Mr. Spock would say, "You're reasoning is highly illogical." To be in "Hell" you would have to be dead, not alive. Actually, we are right now in the world of the dead and it is "eternal" in the sense that we never leave it. We may think we leave it when we discard a physical body, but we actually pop right in again in another body. And as such, we also have eternal suffering since this world certainly has plenty of that. Now that's what makes sense.

Answer 7

Eternal seperation from God is the equivelant of a true spiritual death. The eternal existance of ones soul is a given, you cannot just disappear from existence, you will either exist in eternal life or eternal death.
We view life and death as a finite entity based on our knowledge of the physical, the spiritual existence of a person's soul is another matter.

Answer 8

Nope,Eternal Punishment.

Answer 9

You will live forever somewhere. Either in heaven or hell. The Bible says that in hell, the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched. A man that was in hell saw Abraham afar off and said, 'please bring a drop of water from the tip of your finger and give it to me, for I am tormented in this fire'. However you FEEL about it means nothing; you will live forever somewhere. If you decide to go to hell, send me a text message from your cell phone, because I AM NOT GOING!

Answer 10

There is no eternal life. All versions of Hell and Heaven are stories that have been passed down and retold. There is no right one.