These days we see many leaders writing and speaking about hell…and the lake of fire. There’s a growing list of good men who are saints of God who now proclaim that unbelievers are thrown into the lake of fire but then after some punishment, are annihilated. That is, burned up and extinguished. They quote many passages in the Old and New Testament that use terminology of this type.
So, from my watching their teaching, they seem to mean a temporary punishment, that is, punishment that lasts for a while. In some cases, they seem to mean a short while. In most cases, they never declare how temporary it might be in their opinion.
Few of us can imagine a loving God that would punish, that is, torment human beings forever and ever. But…God is not like us in many ways. We are created in His image we know, but still many of His attributes and their intensity are all together unlike us.
In Matthew 25 in the parable of the sheep and goats, people are separated based on their [Read more…]
