For Christian Please...do you believe in Hell? If so do you believe that they will burn forever?

Question

I just started to read a book by a Christian man and he says there is no hell and that they will not be burning forever. They just will be destroyed meaning they will not live in the afterlife. I have always hated the idea of hell even though I am a Christian and shouldn't fear it. I fear it for the unbelievers. I don't understand hell....I mean its beyond torture. I dont understand why God would allow this. He knew what the future would be for all of us. What do you think?

Answer 1

The book that you are reading is teaching something called “universalism”, or “universal salvation”. It is nothing new, but the idea is not biblical. Wishful thinking does not make something true.

Jesus talked more about Hell than he did about Heaven, so it is hard to be a Christian if ones does not believe in what Christ taught. Jesus certainly believed in Hell.

God created things which had free will. In order for love to be real, then there has to be the very real possibility of rejection. Without the possibility of rejection, love cannot be said to have been freely given. God created creatures that have the freedom to reject God if they want to.

If a creature doesn’t like God, then spending an eternity in Heaven with a god that they do not like will seem like Hell to them also. God takes all of the people who have rejected him and sends them to a place beyond creation where they can fend for themselves. If they don’t like God, then that implies that they don’t want God to keep interfering in their lives by giving them God’s gifts of joy, happiness, love, peace, comfort, etc. So God stops providing for them, and simply leaves them alone for eternity, because that is what they wanted. By rejecting God, they are also rejecting his gifts of comfort, peace, and happiness too.

One also has to realize that God has to punish unrepentant sin, in order to show how bad sin really is, and for God to remain just. People who refuse to repent of their sins have rejected God’s free offer of amnesty and have left God with no other choice.

It sounds harsh, but God obviously thought that free will was worth it.

Answer 2

I think you're absolutely right. I agree with you. Nobody deserves to burn forever and ever in a fire and I don't care what they did! They still do not deserve that.The pastor that I listen to says that the fire they talk about in the bible the burning hell is not a literal fire. Paradise has 2 sides to it and there is a gulf in between these sides. The righteous are on the right hand side of the gulf with God and the unrighteous are on the other side of the gulf or left hand side because they didn't make it and they cannot cross over to where the righteous are. They are not on fire but they are waiting for judgment day which is the first day after the 1000 year millennium which is when God will teach the world the truth and a lot of people that didn't make it the first time will have a change to repent and be saved during this 1000 year reign. This happens after the second coming of Christ.At the end of the millennium is when the great white throne judgment takes place. This is when everyone from the beginning of creation is judged for what they did in their flesh body. If their name is not found writen in the book of life then they are blotted out. They don't exist anymore. The fire they talk about is symbolic for disappointment. They are disappointed that they didn't make it. That's all it means. It is not literal. That's about all I have on that. I hope it helps.

Answer 3

The most important mention of burning is in the Revelation where when God wins the final victory, Satan and all who follow him and all who rejected Christ are thrown into the lake of brimstone. The words used there are "and the smoke of their burning goes on eternally." Perhaps that could be interpreted as they die or are alive either way. But I have also interpreted it to mean eternally burning.

For me personally, hell is not important. To look into the face of God, to see his beauty and to know that you will never again be with him. That to me is more terrible than hell could ever be.

As for the torture and God. There is a lot of judging God by human standards in this forum. Just because we can't conceive of something doesn't mean that it isn't right.

Remember that God is not only love, he is also justice. So those who ultimately reject his forgiveness and grace deserve the fate THEY have chosen. I deserve to burn forever, my sins deserve that. Only through the grace of God will I find grace.

For those above who claim there is no fire or brimstone or that it is only for the angels, how do you deal with this passage of scripture:
"Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. Earth and sky fled from his presence, and there was no place for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what he had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." Revelation 20:11-15

Pastor John

Answer 4

That sounds more like a Jehovah's Witness than a Christian. There is a hell, and the idea of it is not unfair or undeservedly cruel. Rather, it is just and fair. If we do something deserving of punishment, then should we not be punished? It is only fair, and God is just. He did, however, devise a plan through which we don't have to suffer our own punishment; and that is by placing our punishment upon Jesus Christ, who willingly acted as our scapegoat. That way, our punishment is paid in full, while at the same time we pay none of what is due. We only have to accept that gift of God. Yes, I do believe in hell. It is a place of necessity, made necessary by fairness. God has provided a way out, and those who wish to avoid hell should grasp this lifeline with all they have within them.

Answer 5

I believe in hell but remember it wasn't meant for mankind. It grieves God that any should go. But He chose to let us decide.

If you believe the Bible, (I do) then you'll find that Jesus taught, and apostles taught that there is a hell, and at the "end" death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire. John saw this in Revelation. The only way to get around this is to compromise and only take what you want from the Bible.

if you want to hear an interesting view from someone who says God showed them what hell was like...

www.firstupc.com
online sermons-
English,
then the J.T.Pugh sermon that is first.

He said after he seen it, it kept him up for days, he never wanted to think on it.

People can deny something that is true all their lives. It doesn't change that it's still true.

Answer 6

My dear, please do not be deceived. Jesus taught more about hell then he did about heaven.

Even in the Old Testament in the book of Daniel, hell is described as "everlasting shame and contempt"

Everlasting means forever.

Jesus said that people would be cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth, where the fire is never quenched, and the worm never dies. Note, however, that Jesus was quoting from Isaiah, and in the book of Isaiah, it is clear that by "worm" he is referring to the people there. The people in hell never die.

But the thing that makes hell so hellish is that this is the one and only place where God will completely withdraw His very presence from.

People keep telling God (in their attitudes, if nothing else), "Go away, God, get out of my life!", and God will do just that.

But remember, that "All good things come from God", so when God withdraws His very Presence, there will be no good thing there.

That would include such things as light, peace, joy, absense from pain, friends, HOPE! (That's a biggie - can you live forever without hope??? !!! ), etc, along with anything else you might consider "good".

This man who claims to be a Christian obviously never read the Bible very thoroughly. Or, as one person put it, "It's amazing how much light the Scriptures throw on all them commentaries."

I hope this helps you to understand a little better what the Bible teaches about hell.

Answer 7

What is Hell like? God has even given us a way to know what Hell is. Bill Weise has written a book "23 Minutes in Hell" where he describes the sites, smells, and sounds of Hell he saw in a vision. You can even hear him tell you about it on http://www.SpiritLessons.com

Jesus spoke more of Hell than he did on many other subjects. It is hot and eternal.

Hell was built for Satan and the angels that followed him during their great rebellion.

If God weren't merciful, He would not have given us a way to escape it.

As God is perfect, He can not tolerate imperfection in His presence. When Man gave the earth to Satan (through his sin), he needed an intermediary to bridge the gap between God's perfection and our imperfection. That gap was filled through Jesus.

It is easy to cross the gap - simply accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Live for Jesus. How easy is that? It is free, doesn't cost you anything.

You reap everything. That is merciful.

What happens to those that reject Jesus? Well, there are plenty of warnings about the cost of that sin. Eternity in Hell with Satan and the angels that followed him.

God has given you a free escape.

Answer 8

There are three words translated "hell" in Scripture:
Gehenna (Greek): The place of punishment (Matthew 5:22,29; 10:28; and James 3:6)
Hades (Greek): The abode of the dead (Matthew 11:23; 16:18, Luke 16:23; Acts 2:27)
Sheol (Hebrew): The grave (Psalm 9:17; 16:10)

There are those who accept that hell is a place of punishment, but believe that the punishment is to be annihilated—to cease conscious existence. They can’t conceive that the punishment of the wicked will be conscious and eternal. If they are correct, then a man like Adolph Hitler, who was responsible for the deaths of millions, is being "punished" merely with eternal sleep. His fate is simply to return to the non-existent state he was in before he was born, where he doesn’t even know that he is being punished.

However, Scripture paints a different story. The rich man who found himself in hell (Luke 16:19–31) was conscious. He was able to feel pain, to thirst, and to experience remorse. He wasn’t asleep in the grave; he was in a place of "torment." If hell is a place of knowing nothing or a reference to the grave into which we go at death, Jesus' statements about hell make no sense. He said that if your hand, foot, or eye causes you to sin, it would be better to remove it than to "go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched" (Mark 9:43–48).

The Bible refers to the fate of the unsaved with such fearful words as the following:

* "Shame and everlasting contempt" (Daniel 12:2)
* "Everlasting punishment" (Mathew 25:46)
* "Weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 24:51)
* "Fire unquenchable" (Luke 3:17)
* "Indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish" (Romans 2:8,9)
* "Everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord" (2 Thessalonians 1:9)
* "Eternal fire...the blackness of darkness for ever" (Jude 7,13)

Revelation 14:10,11 tells us the final, eternal destiny of the sinner: "He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone...the smoke of their torment ascended up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day or night."

Answer 9

If you accept that people can live forever in Heaven, then you kinda have to accept that they will be in Hell forever. Its kinda complex to work into a Yahoo Answer, but I’ll try to give the Executive Summary version.

Given that man is created in God’s image, life continues after physical existence is finished.

God allows people the choice of being associated with Him, or being separated from Him. Given that He gives them the choice, he’d be kind of a jerk to just destroy everyone that disagrees with Him, so people that choose separation will continue on forever, separated from God. Hell, by definition, is separation from God. So if people choose to be separated from God, then there isn’t anywhere else for them to go.

God is perfection. In His presence is all that is good: love, light, joy, peace, unity, friendship, etc. Therefore separation from God means you get whatever is not in His presence. That is pain, darkness, misery, fear, selfishness, isolation, etc.

It’s a choice. I don’t think I would be interested in a God that didn’t allow me to choose for myself.

Answer 10

I believe in hell, but I don't believe that the burning is literal, nor do I believe that God tortures anyone. I believe that God will display His holiness and goodness in such an indisputable manner that those who have rejected Him will be filled with self-condemnation and self-hate for refusing His merciful offer of salvation.