rolandtroves@gmail.com
Most of the people who believe in the existence of God mainly perceive Him as a God of judgement, and hardly as a God of love. In that perception, they consider Him to be indifferent to or unmoved by their plights in life, but always so quick to condemn and punish them for their wrongs.
Well I've got news for you. God is not like that at all, and I'm truly sorry that many in the Body of Christ have helped to project such a sinister image of God. The notions described above are among the misconceptions we have about divine judgement. We live in an imperfect world; life is often not fair to us, our lofty plans fall through and we see many of our dreams come to nothing. Most of the time, the bad guys get away with their atrocities, while the good guys are made to suffer.
God is not unmindful of all these. Indeed, the Kingdom of Heaven keeps record of everything that happens to everyone ( young or old, male or female ) on the face of the earth. For individuals who do wrong, God has various forms and times for their punishment, depending on the nature of the wrong done. On that we may be able to go into details in a future post, but the focus of this article is eternal judgement. That is, the judgement that comes after death.
THE CONCEPT OF HELL
It goes without saying that we all associate the word 'hell' with untold suffering. In Christian teachings, Hell is the place where all 'sinners' go after death. By that we invariably mean all the people who refused to accept the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour. Now what could possibly be wrong about that kind of teaching? Plenty. But I'll get to that shortly.
The word 'hell' means 'Sheol' in Hebrew. Sheol could refer to grave, pit or the dwelling place of the dead. The parable of Jesus in Luke 16:19-31 about the rich man and Lazarus suggests that Sheol is a place for both the good and the wicked. However, the two groups are separated by 'a great chasm', which further suggests that they occupy two different territories in the same geographical area.
No comments:
Post a Comment