jesus the radical pastor | exploring the life and mission of the 1st century Jesus for our 21st century » Blog Archive » LOVE MEANS NEVER SAYING THE WORD "HELL"
A friend of mine remarked that the new defintion of God’s love means unconditional, endless tolerance and affection. Sweet, but so much wishful thinking. Discounting the perichoresis of the Trinity, the hard edge of love that compelled Jesus to voluntarily lay down his life for sinners is considered ‘bad parenting’ by God the Father, even divine child abuse. You can read it in many popular expressions of the new, soft, fireless, judgmental-less love. I think many of these new "God is love" proponents learned their definitions of love from Sesame Street rather than from the biblical text. What I think they mean when they say "God is love" is "God is nice."
In response to a comment the author added near the end of the post ("I’m totally open to exploring all current ideas about judgment, hell, gehenna, hades, lake of fire and separation from God forever."), I wrote the following:
My own belief on the matter is that the "punishment" in Hell is the undeniable knowledge of the God's love and the price He paid through the blood of His Son to redeem us. I don't think there is a torment that God could possibly add to the realization of the unrepentant of how callously he or she has rejected such a gracious offer that could make that person's suffering any worse.
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