“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as ...an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” {1 John 4:7-10}
What is love? The Scripture answers this question simply and profoundly, God is Love. Apart from Him, love does not exist. The horrendous scene of Calvary’s Cross was the sacrifice of Love. Love always gives, not because it expects to receive in return, but simply because that is the essence of Love. It is what Love does. There is no such thing as “conditional love”, for these words are mutually exclusive. Love has no “conditions” for its existence or display, even when it is unwarranted or rebuffed.
Jesus Christ was the embodiment of God’s Love. He came to earth to reveal Love to humanity. Religion views God’s Love through the distorted lense of man’s conditional “love”. In order to justify this perverted view of Love, they affirm that God’s Love was only really meant for the obedient among His creatures, those that embrace His Love. They conclude that God’s “unreceived love” is transformed into distain and hatred for those that ignore, reject, or simply fail to respond to God’s Love, resulting in “eternal torment” for all those once “loved” by God.
So, as long as an unbelieving person is breathing, he is loved by God. But when that person takes his last breath, does God no longer loves him? Does He annull His Love? “Oh”, some say, “God loves all, and Jesus came to save all, but if God’s love is spurned, there will be hell to pay!” So The Savior, according to this doctrine, is not really The Savior of the world, as the Scripture affirms, but The potential Savior of all. This is a fleeting love indeed! Does this teaching accord with real Love? Is God’s incomparable Love erased by unbelief, and replaced with a torturous hatred more intense and overwhelming than His original Love?
Man’s religion has put God in a box. Men have limited the omnipotent Master of the universe by their small and heartless creeds. Christendom’s doctrine of Eternal Torment supposes that God’s Love is limited to a man’s lifetime, whether short or long. It is the failure to understand Love that declares an end of God’s work at the grave. John The Baptizer, filled with The Spirit of God declared: “ Behold! The Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world!” Was he mistaken? Christendom declares that most of the world’s sin will remain FOREVER, unforgiven, in a fiery “Hell”, with “The Savior” outside, locking the red-hot gates and holding it’s keys.
Hell is a myth, a word not found in the original languages of the Bible, a cruel sword of hate, invented by the clergy to instill fear, and to maintain psychological shackles on the people. Christendom has created an eternal torture chamber of fearful agony to elicit the mindless obedience of the masses of the ignorant. The mere thought of such endless torture overwhelms the sane mind. It presents the very opposite to the true character of The Father; that of endless, limitless love and tenderness.
It is undeniable that God punishes the disobedient, the question is: “How, and for what PURPOSE?” For what purpose do we punish OUR children? Is it not with the goal of correction and reformation? Is this out of our HATRED for our children, or our LOVE for them? Do we suppose that The Almighty is UNABLE, or worse, UNWILLING to accomplish the same for His created and beloved foolish children?
We need only to read the parable of the selfish prodigal son to get a glimpse of how God is able to restore even the most insolent of His children. It was only the humbling of his proud heart that restored him to his father’s bosom. Does the grave create an impassable chasm that His Love can never bridge? Would the fires of a literal furnace melt the cold hearts of those created in His image? Will not rather, the revelation of Himself to the lost child have the desired effect on the rebellious or the simply uninformed? As Job exclaimed when confronted by The Almighty: “My ears had heard of You but now my eyes have seen You. 6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Were we left with no clear statements from Scripture as to the goal of The Creator for His creatures, we might be justified in believing in “eternal” punishment. It is a refusal to believe Paul’s gospel of what Christ came to accomplish at Calvary, that has led to such a sinister doctrine. Paul penned half of the “N.T”, yet never once mentions “hell”, much less threatens anyone with its torments. To him was given the secret blueprints for the consummation of The Father’s Plan for His creation. He reveals in his writings that mankind was ALIENATED from God, Christ’s Cross RECONCILED them; mankind stood CONDEMNED, The Cross JUSTIFIED them; in Adam, mankind was LOST, in Christ, they are SAVED.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love never fails. {1 Cor. 13:4-8}
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him(Jesus), 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” {Col. 1:19,20}
What is love? The Scripture answers this question simply and profoundly, God is Love. Apart from Him, love does not exist. The horrendous scene of Calvary’s Cross was the sacrifice of Love. Love always gives, not because it expects to receive in return, but simply because that is the essence of Love. It is what Love does. There is no such thing as “conditional love”, for these words are mutually exclusive. Love has no “conditions” for its existence or display, even when it is unwarranted or rebuffed.
Jesus Christ was the embodiment of God’s Love. He came to earth to reveal Love to humanity. Religion views God’s Love through the distorted lense of man’s conditional “love”. In order to justify this perverted view of Love, they affirm that God’s Love was only really meant for the obedient among His creatures, those that embrace His Love. They conclude that God’s “unreceived love” is transformed into distain and hatred for those that ignore, reject, or simply fail to respond to God’s Love, resulting in “eternal torment” for all those once “loved” by God.
So, as long as an unbelieving person is breathing, he is loved by God. But when that person takes his last breath, does God no longer loves him? Does He annull His Love? “Oh”, some say, “God loves all, and Jesus came to save all, but if God’s love is spurned, there will be hell to pay!” So The Savior, according to this doctrine, is not really The Savior of the world, as the Scripture affirms, but The potential Savior of all. This is a fleeting love indeed! Does this teaching accord with real Love? Is God’s incomparable Love erased by unbelief, and replaced with a torturous hatred more intense and overwhelming than His original Love?
Man’s religion has put God in a box. Men have limited the omnipotent Master of the universe by their small and heartless creeds. Christendom’s doctrine of Eternal Torment supposes that God’s Love is limited to a man’s lifetime, whether short or long. It is the failure to understand Love that declares an end of God’s work at the grave. John The Baptizer, filled with The Spirit of God declared: “ Behold! The Lamb of God, Who takes away the sin of the world!” Was he mistaken? Christendom declares that most of the world’s sin will remain FOREVER, unforgiven, in a fiery “Hell”, with “The Savior” outside, locking the red-hot gates and holding it’s keys.
Hell is a myth, a word not found in the original languages of the Bible, a cruel sword of hate, invented by the clergy to instill fear, and to maintain psychological shackles on the people. Christendom has created an eternal torture chamber of fearful agony to elicit the mindless obedience of the masses of the ignorant. The mere thought of such endless torture overwhelms the sane mind. It presents the very opposite to the true character of The Father; that of endless, limitless love and tenderness.
It is undeniable that God punishes the disobedient, the question is: “How, and for what PURPOSE?” For what purpose do we punish OUR children? Is it not with the goal of correction and reformation? Is this out of our HATRED for our children, or our LOVE for them? Do we suppose that The Almighty is UNABLE, or worse, UNWILLING to accomplish the same for His created and beloved foolish children?
We need only to read the parable of the selfish prodigal son to get a glimpse of how God is able to restore even the most insolent of His children. It was only the humbling of his proud heart that restored him to his father’s bosom. Does the grave create an impassable chasm that His Love can never bridge? Would the fires of a literal furnace melt the cold hearts of those created in His image? Will not rather, the revelation of Himself to the lost child have the desired effect on the rebellious or the simply uninformed? As Job exclaimed when confronted by The Almighty: “My ears had heard of You but now my eyes have seen You. 6 Therefore I despise myself
and repent in dust and ashes.”
Were we left with no clear statements from Scripture as to the goal of The Creator for His creatures, we might be justified in believing in “eternal” punishment. It is a refusal to believe Paul’s gospel of what Christ came to accomplish at Calvary, that has led to such a sinister doctrine. Paul penned half of the “N.T”, yet never once mentions “hell”, much less threatens anyone with its torments. To him was given the secret blueprints for the consummation of The Father’s Plan for His creation. He reveals in his writings that mankind was ALIENATED from God, Christ’s Cross RECONCILED them; mankind stood CONDEMNED, The Cross JUSTIFIED them; in Adam, mankind was LOST, in Christ, they are SAVED.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love never fails. {1 Cor. 13:4-8}
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him(Jesus), 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” {Col. 1:19,20}
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