A Few Thoughts About Hell

 Modern views 

B1 Restored Church of God:  

C1 The most common image of people “roasting in hell” pictures a God willing to burn people for all eternity without ever totally burning them up. Apart from what the scriptures teach, ask yourself, what kind of God is capable of this? Modern “human rights activists” recognize the terrible evil of torture—even in its temporary forms. Would the loving God of the Bible design an everlasting torture chamber? If so, He would have to witness—for the rest of eternity—the suffering of those that He had condemned to such a “hell.” 

C2 We might also ask: How enjoyable could salvation be for the saved if they were forced to watch their children or parents—and other loved ones—screaming in pain and agony for the rest of time? Do you see the absurdity of this idea? Yet millions upon millions come to this conclusion when they accept the beliefs surrounding the popular concept of hell. (Source) 

B2 The Seventh Day Adventist believes in conditional mortality, but they are not very specific about it on their official web site. 

B3 Then there is the Evangelical Conditionalists:  

C1 Statement on Evangelical Conditionalism 

D1 Conditionalism is the view that life is the Creator’s provisional gift to all, which will ultimately be granted forever to the saved and revoked forever from the unsaved. 

D2 Evangelical conditionalists believe that the saved in Christ will receive glory, honor and immortality, being raised with an incorruptible body to inherit eternal life (Romans 2:7). 

D3 The unsaved will be raised in shame and dishonor, to face God and receive the just condemnation for their sins. When the penalty is carried out, they will be permanently excluded from eternal life by means of a final death, implicating the whole person in a destruction of human life and being (Matthew 10:28). 

C2 Ideas Rob Bell and other modern books and authors. 

Confessions 

B1 Athanasian Creed: 

39.He ascended into heaven, He sits on the right hand of the Father, God, Almighty; 

40.From thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead. 

41.At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies; 

42.and shall give account of their own works. 

43.And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that have done evil into everlasting fire. 

44.This is the catholic faith, which except a man believe faithfully he cannot be saved. 

B2 Arminian Confession of 1621: 

"And finally, punishment, especially eternal, is unjustly and cruelly inflicted on him as disobedient by whom this obedience was not performed solely through the absence of that irresistible and truly necessary grace, who really is not disobedient. "We cannot here state how everywhere in the Scriptures it is affirmed of some, that they resisted the Holy Spirit, that they judged, or rather made themselves unworthy of eternal life(h), that they made void the counsel of God concerning themselves; that they would not hear, come, obey, that they closed their ears and hardened their hearts, etc. 

B3 Belgic Confession: 

The evil ones will be convicted by the witness of their own consciences, and shall be made immortal—but only to be tormented in the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 

B4 Westminster Confession of Faith: 

Q. 29. What are the punishments of sin in the world to come? A. The punishments of sin in the world to come, are everlasting separation from the comfortable presence of God, and most grievous torments in soul and body, without intermission, in hell-fire forever. 

B5 Wesleyan Core Beliefs: 

22. Destiny 250. We believe that the Scriptures clearly teach that there is a conscious personal existence after death. The final destiny of each person is determined by God's grace and that person's response, evidenced inevitably by a moral character which results from that individual's personal and volitional choices and not from any arbitrary decree of God. Heaven with its eternal glory and the blessedness of Christ's presence is the final abode of those who choose the salvation which God provides through Jesus Christ, but hell with its everlasting misery and separation from God is the final abode of those who neglect this great salvation. 

Scripture 

B1 Old Testament 

C1 God is eternal and so is His rule: 

D1 Isaiah 40:28 NRSV Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. 

D2 Psalms 10:16 NRSV The LORD is king forever and ever; the nations shall perish from his land. 

C2 Life and contempt are eternal states: Daniel 12:2 NRSV Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. 

B2 New Testament 

C1 Doing good is defined by God. It is only believing and trusting in Jesus Christ. No human is good except God the Son. John 5:28-29 NRSV Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice 29 and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. 

C2 Jude 1:7 NRSV Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. 

C3 Revelation 20:10 & 15 NRSV And the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever... 15  ...and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire. 

C4 Matthew 25:41 NRSV Then he will say to those at his left hand, 'You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; 

B3 The Scriptures are clear to anyone who can read.