(12-26-2008 11:46 PM)sheep wrecked Wrote: [ -> ][quote='strefanash' pid='342' dateline='1230348307']
For those of us who belong to God, the thought of hell and what that eternal punishment might be like, may be something we cannot envision. Not to disagree with your point about the spiral of unrepented sin, but once someone dies and they do not have Christ, there is no remorse or conviction of sinfulness.
I do distinguish between remorse and conviction of sin, and I certainly do distinguish between knowlege of sin and convicton of sin.
Repentant sorrow is totally different from the torment of remorse. I believe I have experienced both. A regret that wil still never repent is different from repentance without regret that St Paul talked about somewhere. I think it helps to remember that Judas Iscariot hanged himself out of remorse, wheras Peter repented out of conviction of sin. Same sin, different response. So to me it can make sense that if we refused the knowledge of sin that God would give us to lead us to repent, our own knowledge of sin would eternally torment us, this being an ungodly response of our own to the fact of our sin. It also seems to me that if the damned will bow the knee at the last judgement, for it is written everyone will declare that Jesus is Lord, then at the Last Judgement will come the final and dreadful conviction of sin (in a different sense of the word) whereby the damned will know full well why they are being sentenced but this knowlege of sin is given without the least shred of mercy.
Like monk shivering in his cell in terror the Last Judgemnent has figured too much in my thought, indeed I thought I had to embrace this type of fear. The words Dies Irae have haunted me for years
But while I totally reject terrorizing people to convert them (and think ill of Jonathan Edward's sinners in the hand of an angry God sermon as well as that local preacher I told you about) the dreadful reality remains and in its proper context the dreadfall warning must be given.
The biggest stumbling block to me as regards believing in a God of love is the terrible reality of hell which I cannot ever deny, but I begin to dimly sense that what terrorized me was false preaching out to terrify, rather than mercy out to warn and save. Those who said they had to be cruel to be kind to me are of their father ther devil.
But this first post of mine here is largely speculative, I was indulging in a gruesome form of irony to make a point. So i cannot really afford to be dogmatic about it
(12-27-2008 12:30 AM)Emjesown Wrote: [ -> ]About hell
.
Is lake of fire a eternal fire, eternal punishment?
Are the dead without Christ eternally in this lake of fire?
And again it seems so cruel,
but mabey its my human earthly brain.
EMJE
I have always thought so, that hell was eternal torment. And it seemed cruel to me. If I have made any headway on this it is by hammering it out with God Almighty himself in prayer.
HE lead me to acknowledge my sense of outrage and claim of injustice in it, to repent of them. At the moment I can live with the reality of hell as I view God as a Holy and Terrible Emperor, The Tsar of Heaven. But this is only a temporary expedient. It is true but not enough. I am SO resistant to the notion that God the Father loves . . . .
But the answer I am headed to is this: Strictly speaking the love of God is not seen so much by the terrible eternal punishment that justice demands, but by his provision to get anyone out of the state of being headed for it, as a free gift.
I am not there yet. So I continue in endless tension and pain, but He is winning the argument and I continue to repentant under his ongoing personal tutelage
