The verse i came across is Psa 139:7-8" Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there." Any thoughts?
God created the heavens and the earth, he created heaven and hell. He is omnipresent -- it would serve to reason that he would be controlling hell because his wrath will be spent out for eternity.Because the devil won't be in control of Hell, he will be tormented as well.That is just what I believe anyway, if my theology is wrong PLEASE correct me.All pretty much summed up in my opinion in David Wilkerson's - What is Hell Like?Michael
Scripture teaches us that anything that exists is created by God (and only by God - he alone is the creator).Likewise, as Michael rightly pointed out, God is omnipresent - that is, God is everywhere and his awareness/conciousness is fully realized in every location - that is, God isn't "stretched out" to cover everything, rather God is fully present in every place.Revelation 14:10-11, speaking about the punishment given to those who take the mark of the beast says, "he himself shall also drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out full strength into the cup of His indignation. He shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night, who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”So while God will certainly not be suffering the torments of hell, He will be "there" just as He is everywhere else.
I like the way Dann said that God is fully present in everything. Whoa am I ever glad that there is edit on this. I first put bully instead of fully, and it floored me. Michael ~> Since Hell literally means death and we're talking about a living God, I personally don't believe that God is dead. I haven't yet come to the determination that Hell is an actual place. Rather that is is the termination of your soul. To perish means to perish, no chance of eternal life. I can't justify figurative scripture verses that tell me that a God of love eternally punishes people. What greater torment upon that day when you are judged to find that you have no chance to be with God, that He gave you a chance and now you will perish. I believe there are many gnashing teeth when they realize that God will terminate them. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son that whoever believes would not perish. This verse clearly say that they will perish. For the wages of sin is death. Neither of these verses speak about eternal punishment. So in a way if people's souls perish and die, than there would be no reason for God to control any environment while eternally punishing them. I think He's more concerned about spending time with the saints forever than creating a place where He can provide misery for others forever. These are my own personal observations after considering the love of God and how I believe He would behave in that loving manner to those who chose not to believe in Him as well as the words in scripture concerning death and perish.
Onfire, if you haven't yet, please read my reply to your post in the thread "what happens to us after death", as well as Warrior4Jah's reply immediately following mine. Hell is very real and literal, and eternal.
Hey dann, Is there scripture that states that God is 'there' in hell?dann wrote:So while God will certainly not be suffering the torments of hell, He will be "there" just as He is everywhere else.
I'll have to go check that out. However, why does scripture say in Revelations that it will end. Rev. 20:14 Yes, I agree that Hell as described in Matthew was a real place. Christ was speaking of the pit outside the walls of Jerusalem where children were sacrificed, where pagan burned people who they believed were sinning. This is the reality of what Christ was warning people of. Hell for those people was death. Also in the Old Testament in regards to the word shoel, the Jewish people have no concept of eternal punishment. Shoel means the grave.Hell being the death and perishing of the soul is one thing. Eternal punishment is another. If we have a child and we give them a choice and they take the choice that we would hope that they would not take, do we punish them for that choice? Is it not punishment enough simply to be denied what we could have had if we would have made the correct choice?So our concept of Hell must be in context with what Christ would have been referring to in His lifetime when He was speaking allegorically to people. We can't take His allegories and turn them into reality. We have to understand the spiritual lesson behind them.
Onfire wrote:Hell literally means deathIn another thread you said sin literally means seperation from God. Where are you getting your "literal" traslation from? The Greek??
While reading the thread, this thought came to me... what if God stopped treating the unjust the same way He treats the 'just', and treating the evil the same way He treats the good?Would we think He had stopped loving?Matthew 544 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; 45 that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.
I was always tought (and believed) that hell was "Seperation from God". Is this scriptural at all? If God wasn't in hell then this would make sense... but if a non-christian went to hell, and God was in hell then would he really be seperated from him if God was there?Does that make any sense?
Probably saying you are cut off from God's love and perfect heaven compared to the Wrath of God and pain and suffering in hell is more accurate.
why dos it matter
The verse i came across is Psa 139:7-8" Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there." Any thoughts?"Hell" here is a confusing translation. The Hebrew word is Sheol, which literally means a deep pit, and in Jewish literature refers to the temporary place of the dead. The word itself is neutral, though sometimes it has connotation with evil. That's why NIV translates "the depths".Note also we are talking here poetry. The psalmist is not trying to make an explicit theological statement concerning the whereabouts of God.
I always just took this to mean that the psalmist simply meant that wherever he went he was still aware and reminded of God's reality and existance.Kirk Cameron has a turn of phrase that I feel illustrates what I mean pretty well. He says that nothing about us is hidden from God, but that we "share our 'thought-life' with Him." Meaning that in all things God is present and aware.The bible says that men will still curse God even from the depth's of hell, so I just always took this to mean that once every knee bows to the reality of God that even in hell God will be evenmore real to an unsaved person and will in that sense be always "present" in their thought-life.
Yes Hell is seperation from God. If a saint were to "go though Hell" Christ would be there...for the saint It is true that God may grant the sinner "good things" in this earth...but NEVER His presence. That is for the saint. When the sinner goes to hell even the good things of this life will leave him. But should somehow the saint ever visit there (for poetrys sake..) they would not be harmed and neither would they leave smelling like smoke! Gods presence is with us. "Nothing can seperate us from the Love of God"
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