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Originally Posted by orange Are there different degrees of suffering in hell, or is it the same amount of suffering for everyone who goes there? Why I ask is because it seems rather unfair that everyone should face the exact same punishment. |
To believe that all the righteous go to heaven, and all the wicked go to hell is to draw a distinct line between everyone and send some to the right and some to the left. Some to destruction and torment, and some to shining glory. This kind of division of juidgement cannot proceed from a God who is superlatively just. It is not just to condemn all the the same punishment for different degtrees of wickedness, neither is it just that all will receive equal glory for different degrees of righteousness.
But in the clamor to have some system to point at, men have devised a judicial system redolent of the worst despots and delivered it into the hands and mouth of the mighty Jehovah.
Jesus said unto His disciples, "In my Father's house are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, and I will come and receive you to myself, that where I am ye may be also."
With the undertanding that it is God and God alone who will pass judgement on all of us, let us turn to consider the scriptures for a moment. The penitent malefactor said Jesus, 'Lord, remember me when Thou comest into Thy kingdom.' And Jesus said unto him, 'Verily I say unto thee, today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.'"
From this statement some have taken it for granted that the thief on the cross received full and complete salvation. Some have taught the murderer in the felon's cell to confess Christ and all would be well with him; and as the hangman drew the bolt and let the culprit swing into eternity, the minister has stood close by and said, "The Lord Jesus receive thy soul."
On the other hand, the poor victim of the assassin has been cut off without time to confess Christ, and the same doctrine which wafts the murderer to the courts of glory consigns the victim to the flames of hell. Is it possible that Christ ever taught such a heinous doctrine? NO!
The question is, where did he go? If not to heaven, then the paradise named and heaven are two different places. Let the Scriptures speak for themselves. Three days after the crucifixion the Savior came forth a resurrected being, and as Mary met Him at the tomb, He said to her, "Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father."
Thus we have from His own lips that He had not ascended to the Father; and if He had not, neither had the thief. If no further light than this could be found in the Bible this would be sufficient to show that the malefactor did not go to heaven, for where Jesus went the thief went, for that was the promise. Where, then, did the Lord go?
Turn to I Peter 3:18-21, and the question is answered: "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but quickened by the Spirit: By which also He went and preached unto the spirits in prison; Which sometimes were disobedient when once the long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah."
This makes it plain that the paradise referred to was the prison house, to which place Jesus went and opened up a dispensation of the Gospel to the dead. The next chapter, 6th verse, says: "For for this cause was the Gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit."
The thief went to a place of confinement to wait until the justice of God was satisfied and mercy stepped in and claimed her own. The difference between the penitent malefactor and the antediluvians was that the former immediately went to a place where Christ would present to him the plan of life, that day, while the latter had waited hundreds of years for that privilege. This shows that repentance brings its blessings even upon the deathbed; but to say that, after a life of sin, the malefactor went straight to the abode of the Father and remained there in glory, is in conflict with the teachings of Christ and Peter.
The statements of Peter relative to the mission of Christ to the spirits in prison throws light upon the saying of the Savior in St. John 5:25, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live."
Thus we see the privileges of the penitent malefactor. He went to the prison house and heard the Gospel, but how long he remained there before receiving all the saving benefits of the Gospel, we are not told. One thing is certain—he did not come back with the Messiah, nor have we ever heard of him sitting down with Christ on the right hand of the Father.
The opposite of salvation is damnation, and just as there are varying degrees and kinds of salvation, so there are degrees and kinds of damnation. There is a "greater damnation" (Matt. 23:14) and, thus, obviously, a lesser damnation.
That part of the spirit world inhabited by wicked spirits who are awaiting the eventual day of their resurrection is called hell. But, Hell will have an end. Viewing future events, John saw that "death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works." (Rev. 20:13.)
As we have seen, Jesus taught his disciples: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you." (John 14:2) If there were but one heaven, and all who go there would share and share alike, how inconsistent for Jesus to even suggest going to prepare a place for his disciples, and then to add, "In my Father's house are many mansions."
Since, therefore, there are many mansions in his Father's house, it is well that we give consideration to them. The apostle Paul informed us that he knew a man in Christ who was caught up to the third heaven. A careful reading of this scripture will reveal the fact that Paul himself was that man: I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth; such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth; How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter. (2 Corinthians 12:2-4.)
It is obvious that there could not be a third heaven unless there is also a first and a second heaven. We therefore have three heavens, paradise, and the hell so often spoken of in the scriptures, making at least five places to which we may go after death. Paul gave a most wonderful description of the resurrection:
"There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. . . . (1 Corinthians 15:40-42.)
What could be plainer? There is a glory of the sun, or celestial glory; another glory like the moon, or the terrestrial glory; and another glory like the stars, or, as we will learn, the telestial glory; and since "one star differeth from another star in glory," so also "is the resurrection of the dead." From this we learn that the great multitude in the resurrection will be likened unto the stars in heaven; and just as their works have differed in importance and faithfulness here upon the earth, so also shall their condition in the resurrection differ, even as the stars in heaven differ in glory.
The Holy Bible generalizes the future estate of the righteous as heaven, and the opposite as hell, without giving warrant, however, for the belief that but two places or kingdoms are provided, to one or the other of which every soul is to be consigned according to the balance-sheet of his life's account, and perhaps on a very small margin of merit or guilt. Equally unscriptural is the inference that the state of the soul at death determines that soul's place and environment throughout eternity.
When left to his imagination, without the guidance of heaven, man conjures up & heaven and a hell to suit his fancy. Thus, to the mind of the uninspired, heaven is a hunting-ground with game a-plenty; to the carnal, heaven promises perpetual gratification of senses and passions; to the lover of truth and the devotee of righteousness, heaven is the assurance of limitless advancement in wisdom and achievement. And to each of these, hell is the eternal realization of deprivation, loss, disappointment and consequent anguish.
Divine revelation is the only source of sure knowledge as to what awaits man beyond the grave, and from this we learn that at death the spirits of all men pass to an intermediate state, in which they associate with their kind, the good with the good, the wicked with the wicked, and so shall endure in happiness or awful suspense until the time appointed for their resurrection. Paradise is the dwelling place of relatively righteous spirits awaiting the glorious dawn of the resurrection.
The final judgment, at which all men shall appear before the bar of God, is to follow their resurrection from the dead. We shall stand in our resurrected bodies of flesh and bones to receive from Jesus Christ, who shall judge the world, the sentence we individually merit, whether it be "Come ye blessed of my Father" or "Depart from me ye cursed." (See Matt. 25:31-46.)
Until then, we can take hope that the choices are not as stark as some believe them to be, and as they would have us believe them to be.
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