I’m reading Leviticus with its complicated
rules regarding worship, sacrifices, and the tabernacle, and I’m thinking, “Just
give me the Gentile version.” But somewhere in the middle of the “priestly
linen undergarments,” it hits me: No unholy thing can abide in the presence of
God; without all of that ritual, any human being approaching God would die. Yet
I, a once unholy being, am invited into God’s Holy presence and filled with His
Holy Spirit. How? The blood of Christ—the eternal sacrifice—cleans me and
makes me fit to be with God!
I am His. I am holy. I will live
with God for eternity, and worship with my Christian brothers and sisters for all time. I
will see the new heavens and the new earth and live forever where there is no sin
or pain or fear or sorrow or death. Praise God!
If I do not allow Christ to wash
me in His blood continually, I remain unholy, and the unholy cannot be with God. Which
leads me to the question, is there a place of eternal punishment, and if so, what
is its nature and who ends up there?
I witnessed a debate in the ‘70s between
a Christian minister and the British Scholar and then-atheist, Antony Flew. Dr.
Flew cited the Holocaust in his argument against the popular concept of Hell,
saying something like this: According to some Christians, anyone who does not
accept Christ as savior is damned. Jews, by definition, do not accept Christ
and will, according to those Christians, spend eternity being burned alive. So God
used the ovens of Hitler to usher millions of Jews into the ovens of Hell. Is
this a loving God?
I am in no position to judge a
good and perfect God, but God made me in His image and able to know good from
evil. I do not believe that simple existence and sin, though abhorrent, justifies
eternal, excruciating torture for anyone. (Punishment, yes. Death, yes.
Eternal torture, no.)
If not eternal torture, what? What
ultimately happens to persons who do not follow Jesus? The Bible tells us that all sinners are
doomed to “destruction."
Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the
flesh will reap destruction; whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit
will reap eternal life.
Galatians 6:8
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body
but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both
soul and body in hell. (Meaning God)
Matthew 10:28
These two scriptures imply that
the bodies and souls of sinners are not eternal, that they can and will be
destroyed "eternally."
So, what about “The fire that
never goes out?” or the “unquenchable
fire”? I don’t know. I know Hell was prepared for the Devil and his angels,
eternal beings who currently war against God, persecute His saints, and attempt
to rob us of our holiness. Perhaps for eternal beings, Hell is eternal torture?
