Hello my siblings in Christ, I am Bojan, and welcome to hell yet again. Eternal hell.
Also, welcome to my new series Wrath of God, where we will, God willing, in, time, discuss such interesting subjects as the nature of hell, penal substitution, predestination and so forth.
Today we will talk about eternity of hell. Eternal hell is a scary concept. Some people leave Christianity because they can’t digest it. Others simply turn to heresy: annihilationism, or it’s extreme opposite, apocatastasis.
Now, God does not utterly destroy sinners. Suffice to say, God does not create in order to destroy.
This leaves us with apocatastis, the favorite heresy of many. I don’t blame them - it is a tempting one. Simply put, the apocatastasis is a teaching according to which, in the end, everyone will be saved. Not just humans, but demons as well. It is a pretty, and tempting, teaching.
In the Orthodox Church, the teaching has been condemned as heretical - and for a good reason. It is okay to hope that, in the end, all will say 'yes' to God, but it becomes a big issue if you think that absolutely everyone will say 'yes' to God.
Furthermore, I believe that those who are in hell cannot repent out of reason that their repentance wouldn't be sincere. They would repent only as far as to escape the torments. There is a story from Dostoyevsky that shows this superbly. I’ll paraphrase it.
In this village there lived a certain, evil woman. She had absolutely no good deeds - she lied, cheated, stole, cursed, and so on. She died and is was consigned to hell. Her guardian angel approached the Lord and asked if there's a chance for her to be saved.
Other angels jump in: "She had no good deed!"
Her Guardian angel replies: "Nuh-huh, she fed a hungry man once."
Other angel respond: "No, she threw an onion at a beggar when he asked for some food, she wanted him to get out of her face!"
But, the guardian angel is smart, and he says: “See, even a good deed done in spite is still a good deed in the Lord's eyes!”
The Lord is, by this point, bored with His beloved angels bickering, so He tells the guardian angel to dip said onion into hell and to try to pull her out of it. The guardian angel does so, and the woman, seeing the onion, immediately grabs it. However, other damned souls all flock to the onion, and grab it as well. The guardian angel begins to pull, but the woman starts kicking and screaming: "This is my onion, I gave it, you can't have it!" as she tries to kick others off the stem.
As soon as she says it, the stem breaks and she falls to the abyss once again.
People can say 'no' forever to God. I don't think it is that much of saying a singular no, but a continuous, everlasting no. You may think that no one in their right mind would say no to someone as beautiful and awesome and good as God, but bear in mind that one third of the angels did. We do it on a daily basis even. If you cannot comprehend how love can turn foul, watch "War of the Roses", a beautiful love story that turns into a scorched earth warfare.
Also, welcome to my new series Wrath of God, where we will, God willing, in, time, discuss such interesting subjects as the nature of hell, penal substitution, predestination and so forth.
Today we will talk about eternity of hell. Eternal hell is a scary concept. Some people leave Christianity because they can’t digest it. Others simply turn to heresy: annihilationism, or it’s extreme opposite, apocatastasis.
Now, God does not utterly destroy sinners. Suffice to say, God does not create in order to destroy.
This leaves us with apocatastis, the favorite heresy of many. I don’t blame them - it is a tempting one. Simply put, the apocatastasis is a teaching according to which, in the end, everyone will be saved. Not just humans, but demons as well. It is a pretty, and tempting, teaching.
In the Orthodox Church, the teaching has been condemned as heretical - and for a good reason. It is okay to hope that, in the end, all will say 'yes' to God, but it becomes a big issue if you think that absolutely everyone will say 'yes' to God.
Furthermore, I believe that those who are in hell cannot repent out of reason that their repentance wouldn't be sincere. They would repent only as far as to escape the torments. There is a story from Dostoyevsky that shows this superbly. I’ll paraphrase it.
In this village there lived a certain, evil woman. She had absolutely no good deeds - she lied, cheated, stole, cursed, and so on. She died and is was consigned to hell. Her guardian angel approached the Lord and asked if there's a chance for her to be saved.
Other angels jump in: "She had no good deed!"
Her Guardian angel replies: "Nuh-huh, she fed a hungry man once."
Other angel respond: "No, she threw an onion at a beggar when he asked for some food, she wanted him to get out of her face!"
But, the guardian angel is smart, and he says: “See, even a good deed done in spite is still a good deed in the Lord's eyes!”
The Lord is, by this point, bored with His beloved angels bickering, so He tells the guardian angel to dip said onion into hell and to try to pull her out of it. The guardian angel does so, and the woman, seeing the onion, immediately grabs it. However, other damned souls all flock to the onion, and grab it as well. The guardian angel begins to pull, but the woman starts kicking and screaming: "This is my onion, I gave it, you can't have it!" as she tries to kick others off the stem.
As soon as she says it, the stem breaks and she falls to the abyss once again.
People can say 'no' forever to God. I don't think it is that much of saying a singular no, but a continuous, everlasting no. You may think that no one in their right mind would say no to someone as beautiful and awesome and good as God, but bear in mind that one third of the angels did. We do it on a daily basis even. If you cannot comprehend how love can turn foul, watch "War of the Roses", a beautiful love story that turns into a scorched earth warfare.
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