easternstar
Active Member
Anybody see any scriptural and/or early church support for it?
Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!
Well, I was speaking about the destiny of the human spirit -- eternal torment, annihilation, or universalism.
A sentiment has been growing -- yes, even in evangelical circles -- that favors annihilation over eternal torment. Is it consistent with God's character -- his mercy, love, and justice -- to punish eternally?Mark 9:47,48
47And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48where ‘their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.’
"The worm does not die" is a powerful biblical metaphor, primarily from Isaiah and quoted by Jesus, symbolizing eternal conscious punishment, unending sensations of torment, and irreversible ongoing destruction for the wicked in hell, representing perpetual decay and suffering where the "food" (the body or memory) is never fully consumed by the worm, unlike earthly decay that ends.
I personally think the worm is the sinner’s conscience that, suppressed in this life, is fully activated in the afterlife, causing relentless anguish and guilt.
A sentiment has been growing -- yes, even in evangelical circles -- that favors annihilation over eternal torment. Is it consistent with God's character -- his mercy, love, and justice -- to punish eternally?
I'm not sure that I believe what a person does in a 70-year life span deserves punishment without end.Yes, it is. It is consistent with God’s nature (wrath and love) to let people be rewarded eternally and to let others experience punishment eternally.
Eternal torment is not God torturing a sinner. I believe the punishment comes from the sinner’s own conscience which, finally liberated from the haze of materialistic deception, false religion, and selfish hedonism, will persecute and hound them endlessly. God is love, but He is no chump. He must not be trifled with. Each person makes themself compatible with heaven or compatible with hell.
A sinner would be miserable in heaven. They would dislike gentleness, peace, holiness, self-restraint, devout living, praising God. They prefer turmoil, cruelty, perversions, lust, disobeying and mocking God. They will not enjoy hell, but they design their destiny by what they do. Death seals their fate.
I'm not sure that I believe what a person does in a 70-year life span deserves punishment without end.
That's a fair point.The Bible doesn't say that a lost person stops sinning after death. That's something to think about as well.
I'm not sure that I believe what a person does in a 70-year life span deserves punishment without end.
I'm not sure that I believe what a person does in a 70-year life span deserves punishment without end.
I'm not sure that I believe what a person does in a 70-year life span deserves punishment without end.
I'm not so sure about that.We are created of eternal fabric to be with God forever.
Rejecting God and His mercy does not change the fact that souls are eternal after their creation.
People will continue eternally with God or without God.
I hate to say this, but it's true. If I didn't have a good basis for some of the things I believe, some of the strongest reasons for rejecting Christianity as it is taught by many come from within Christianity itself.
If the God that many Christians present is not more merciful and just than I am, then He is not the God whom Jesus represented. Some doctrines held by Christians are hideous, and it's hard for me to understand how people can believe such doctrines.
The more I search and ponder, and come to specific conclusions, the less I seem to fit in anywhere. And the older I get, the less certain about things I become.
Opinion of the tree good and evil(Genesis 3:22) is good for nothing. Your thinking is from a human perspective->Genesis 3:1, man of sin, in fact a stumblingblock, your thinking is not from GOD's perspective. What matters and prevails is the righteous Judgment of GOD as is written in His book, understand? by the way, the book of life. ->John 1:5-> The light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. -> GOD is Light-> the Greater Light-, and in Him is no darkness at all.-1John 1:5.I hate to say this, but it's true. If I didn't have a good basis for some of the things I believe, some of the strongest reasons for rejecting Christianity as it is taught by many come from within Christianity itself.
If the God that many Christians present is not more merciful and just than I am, then He is not the God whom Jesus represented. Some doctrines held by Christians are hideous, and it's hard for me to understand how people can believe such doctrines.
The more I search and ponder, and come to specific conclusions, the less I seem to fit in anywhere. And the older I get, the less certain about things I become.
I hate to say this, but it's true. If I didn't have a good basis for some of the things I believe, some of the strongest reasons for rejecting Christianity as it is taught by many come from within Christianity itself.
If the God that many Christians present is not more merciful and just than I am, then He is not the God whom Jesus represented. Some doctrines held by Christians are hideous, and it's hard for me to understand how people can believe such doctrines.
The more I search and ponder, and come to specific conclusions, the less I seem to fit in anywhere. And the older I get, the less certain about things I become.