DLL, you ask "Where is justice of God if all the unsaved simply cease to exist?" The question assumes that extinction is insufficient punishment. What does the Bible teach?
The wages of sin are death
They are dead, they shall not live; they are deceased, they shall not rise: therefore hast thou visited & destroyed them & made all remembrance of them to perish"
They shall be as though they had not been
The dead know not anything
Who shall suffer punishment, even eternal destruction
They shall sleep a perpetual sleep and shall not wake
Every soul that shall not hearken to that prophet shall be utterly destroyed
The soul that sinneth, it shall die
Rom 6:23 Isa 26:14 Oba 16 Ecc 9:5&10 2 Thes 1:9 Jer 51:39&57 Acts 3:23 Ezk 18:4&20
DLL, the abundant testimony of scripture is simply: Death is the Penalty for Sin. Nothing more! You asked "Where is the justice of God ..." Let me finish that question: Where is the justice of God who said "In the day that you eat of the fruit you shall surely die" but witheld from Adam the rest of the punishment: "...and burn forever?"
If the penalty for overparking is $20 and when you go to court they give you the death penalty, is that just? Find one place in the Hebrew Scriptures where eternal torment is announced as the penalty. There isn't any! In the NT Jesus speaks of Gehenna, the Valley of Hinnom in the same passages where he tells us to chop off our hands and feet and gouge out our eyes ... all symbolic. The Lake of Fire is simply the second death, into which some even enter while alive: Jude 12. Jude 7 says Sodom and Gomorrah suffered the punishment of eternal fire; but they're not still burning, just destroyed eternally.
The premise that there must be eternal torment to scare us into rightoussness ignores 1 John 4:18: There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love
DLL, can't you see bitter fruits of this vile teaching make the God of Love the most gruesome fiend in the universe, having constructed, as Andretti sent me a description last year: "An everlasting Auschwitz from which you can't even die?" People become like the God they worship. Observe the blood soaked garments of Christendom's clergy who pray for both sides of every war on the planet and tell me which god they serve. 2 Cor 4:4 This demonic doctrine produces haters of God, agnostics and atheists. Listen to Sam Ferguson and Mark Silver for proof.
Jehovah preserveth all them that love him;
But all the wicked will he destroy.
My mouth shall speak the praise of Jehovah;
And let all flesh bless his holy name for ever and ever Ps 145:20-1
God is LOVE, DLL! |
