Tags
Annihilationism, eternal, God, hell, infinite, Infinity, Jonathan Edwards, justice, punishment, Sin
This is the sum of the objections usually made against this doctrine: that it is inconsistent with the justice, and especially with the mercy, of God. And some say [that] if it be strictly just, yet how can we suppose that a merciful God can bear eternally to torment his creatures.
First, I shall briefly show that it is not inconsistent with the justice of God to inflict an eternal punishment. To evince this, I shall use only one argument, viz. that sin is heinous enough to deserve such a punishment, and such a punishment is no more than proportionable to the evil or demerit of sin. If the evil of sin be infinite, as the punishment is, then it is manifest that the punishment is no more than proportionable to the sin punished, and is no more than sin deserves. And if the obligation to love, honor, and obey God be infinite, then sin which is the violation of this obligation, is a violation of infinite obligation, and so is an infinite evil. Again, if God be infinitely worthy of love, honor, and obedience, then our obligation to love, and honor, and obey him is infinitely great. – So that God being infinitely glorious, or infinitely worthy of our love, honor, and obedience, our obligation to love, honor, and obey him (and so to avoid all sin) is infinitely great. Again, our obligation to love, honor, and obey God being infinitely great, sin is the violation of infinite obligation, and so is an infinite evil. Once more, sin being an infinite evil, deserves an infinite punishment. An infinite punishment is no more than it deserves. Therefore such punishment is just, which was the thing to be proved. There is no evading the force of this reasoning, but by denying that God, the sovereign of the universe, is infinitely glorious, which I presume none of my hearers will venture to do.
- Jonathan Edwards, The Eternity of Hell Torments
Amen.
I am thinking that it isn’t so much the punishment (hear me out) fits the sin – yes our sin is involved major time – it does lead us away from the truth of the gospel and away from Jesus.
But I think that the biggest thing – crime – is the rejection of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross for our sins that warrants the eternal judgment for that unbelief that what Jesus did isn’t worthy or enough for out sins.
For when Jesus died for our sins He also had plans for us to spend an eternity with Him in a glorious relationship with Jesus also because we give our lives to Him in our relationship with Him.
Wouldn’t you think that there would be an eternal place for those who reject what Jesus did for them in hell as well as giving those who believe a glorious future? We all get to go to one place or the other for our belief or our unbelief.
We are all on equal status in that we all have an eternity to go to – for God is no respector of persons in any regard and the choice is ours and only ours where we go. CHOOSE LIFE!
Linda,
I appreciate your sincerity but the choice is not ours for that would give sovereignty to man. We could go into this deeper but that would take much unpacking which I would be eager to do but in the comment section it would be difficult. I would make two points here though first that the place of eternal torment was created for the sinner; the sinner was not created for the place as terrible as it must be there is nothing in the place as utterly dreadful as those who are in it. Second even though it is true that our unbelief is our sin this is to fall well short of expressing the gravity of our transgression. It is true that in our unregenerate state that we disbelief God for we are unable by our nature to do otherwise because we are slaves to our sin. But we are not excused for it make no mistake the ox drinketh because he thirtieth. This brings us right to the exact point that the Savior makes in Matt 15:19 that out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, theft, false witness, slanders. Jesus dispels all other notions of mans nature here by stating that man sins against God because man at the foundation of his being is evil. On the surface it would appear that Adam did far less than just reject the Gospel of Jesus? But he willfully out of his own heart did sin infinitely against an infinite God.
Sheol, Gehenna, Tartarus…all translated as Hell in the king Jimmy but far from the actual translated meanings. There were about 6 major schools of teaching in the first century and the school at Alexandria taught annihilation. another taught eternal punishment (Rome), and still another taught universalism (Ephesus). First century Christians seemed to lean harder to the Alexandrian school of thought as a majoity viewoint of their time
I replied to this comment on your first post.
TY,
God in His sovereinty gave us free will.
God saw ahead of time that He would have to send us a Saviou. Gen 3:15. to redeem mankind from the fall. No single individual is chosen, elected, foreknown, predestinated to be saved or lost without their own personal choice.
John 3:16 says For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that WHOSOEVER BELIEVETH in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. ( God does not force anyone to believe, it is our choice. It’s whosoever believeth, not you will believe from a dictator God.)
Rev. 22:17 And the Spirit and the bride say, come, And let him that heareth say, come. And let him that is athirst come. And WHOSOEVER WILL, let him TAKE the water of LIFE.
It would be a cruel respect of persons from God for one to be chosen to be saved and another to be damned. His grace is offered to all and we choose to believe or not. God does not force it upon us.
His invite, warnings, promises are general. All are invited to choose life and are warned of eternal punishment if they don’t choose God.
No point to beleiving if God is going to pick and choose who goes to heaven and who goes to hell. That says that we don’t have to believe to get there.
Deut. 30:19 says “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: THEREFORE CHOOSE LIFE , that both thou and thy seed may live: That thou mayest love the Lord thy God, and that thou mayest obey His voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the Lord sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.
Seems to me we told to choose life in Jesus.
Linda
Linda,
With Pastor Taylor permission I would like to respond if he does not mind I will try to somewhat limit the length of the comments.
Also I appreciate David’s comment.
I would like to first respond to your first two points in your last comment. I would be happy to dialog on these two points as long as you will stay on topic and deal meaningfully with the responses that I give. This is a topic worthy of the deepest consideration and we should purpose ourselves to handle the word of God accordingly. I would be happy to respond to the rest of your comment but as there have been volumes written on this we should restrict our dialog for sake of time.
First I have some questions. You said God in His sovereignty gave us free will.
What do you mean by free will? Do you mean a morally neutral agent? That is to say an agent who having the knowledge of good and evil is still able in and of himself to examine both good and evil and make a choice to his own benefit or hurt? And if this is the case with man in his current condition than how did Adam differ as he did not have knowledge of evil yet still willfully disobeyed God?
We will not just yet discuss the issues with claiming that there can be a moral neutral agent and the matter of antecedents and necessity of choice according to the nature of the moral agent.
Your next point that God saw ahead of time He would have to send a savior and what people would choose.
If you are saying then that God being omniscient and exiting outside of or before He has created time and space merely takes in knowledge of the events and choices that not yet created beings who may chose this or that.
The question here is how can God look ahead in to the future of people who do not yet exist to see what they may or may not do? Because if God only takes in knowledge then His omniscience is not really omniscience and His decrees are only a reaction to a finite created being.
This subjugates God to his creation and makes all of His promises and decrees only a secondary response to the creature.
Again not to belabor the point but if the .000000001 % of mans salvation hinges upon his own choice as a moral agent then the power of whether or not God will save even one person is in the complete control of man.
Again I only ask that you hold to these two points you have made so that we deal with the issue at hand and do not digress.
Linda says: “It would be a cruel respect of persons from God for one to be chosen to be saved and another to be damned. His grace is offered to all and we choose to believe or not. God does not force it upon us.”Actually, I find it, and have found it (for about 35 years) far easier to believe that God has an elect people and provides for them and saves them and keeps them -than I have to believe that God has a giant lottery system, leaving salvation to chance, so to speak – the saving work of the Son.perhaps in the end having saved none – since it was all up to fickle, fallen man. For those who struggle with the notion of electing grace, I often wonder why they do not struggle with eternal damnation. I personally find eternal damnation more difficult to grasp and explain than I do electing, sovereign grace. That men need to be made sensible about and drawn savingly into relationship to Christ I find not at all difficult to believe – having had a lifetime of experience with fallen men. But ETERNAL damnation? Never a second chance? Never a reprieve? Never a chance for appeal or review? ETERNAL?? That’s the tough docrtine. I believe it, the Word of God teaches it, but it’s infinitely darker, and more austere than election ever could be.