Hell

Yet more random mutterings and protestations on the ever controversial topic of hell.

The first point to be made is quite simple: hell is not an elaborately designed torture chamber planned by a malicious genius who is always looking for more victims. It is a place infinitely removed from the Grace of God, to which He consigns those who spend their entire lives spurning Him. This is just even as far as our limited minds can conceive: if men spend their entire lives rebelling against their rightful Sovereign, does it not inevitably follow that they will at some point be cast out of His Kingdom and the protection that it entails?

My second point is even simpler: hell is eternal, and those that are sent there are punished eternally. To those who say that they are punished only until the measure of their sins is expiated (annihilationism), I completely agree. The only problem is that for all of eternity, they are still sinning against God, still raging that their punishment is unjust, still cursing the mercy that they spurned for all of their lives, and, thusly, their sins are never expiated. All mercy and restraint is removed from them, and they continue, unleashed as it were, eternally in their previous rebellion and eternally in their current punishment.

My final point is the simplest of all: hell is desired by those who go there. The world follows a design, and that design is not complicated: God Is, and He Is Good. All that exists exists in Him, supported either in submission or in rebellion, and all that exists was created by Him for His Purposes, and will give an account for every word and deed, by which reckoning we are all righteously damned, and to His Glory. Yet, He took that damnation upon Himself, again for His Glory. Those who fall upon this mercy are saved, and those who still hate God are given (to) what they desire: an eternity apart from Him. What was not counted upon ties into the first point: when He removes His Holy Presence, the blessings that accompany Him are removed as well.

"I finally have everything my heart desires, and with finality find myself in hell."