aspen2 said:
i think the main problem I have with dismissing the doctrine of heaven and hell is the same problem I have with dispnsationalim - all the teaching were developed 1900 years after Christ.
Hi! 'Aspen'
I was rather perplexed by your comment saying, "I think the main problem ... all the teaching were developed 1900 years after Christ",
I suspect that you might not be so eager to include the 'Trinity Doctrine' into this same formula mix; after all, it was first introduced some 300 years after Christ's resurrection.
No one present day can claim to have a monopoly on the truth. Myself, included.
Truth is not something static; it's always being revealed as an unfolding matter ... a process.
More importantly, God speaks to His people first and foremost as individuals and in a language that they alone can comprehend and understand. These independent threads of truth are what forms the embroidery of/for the church.
Take for instance, the doctrine behind the idea of 'Universal Reconciliation', otherwise known as "All Are Saved". Many have rejected this wrong teaching because it's clearly the testimony of those who remain unable to confess that God is only and completely good.
Truth always compels this principle: when the foundation is tampered with, the entire edifice collapses.
So it is that, when sincere Christians began to accuse God of demanding the wages (punishment) for sin, the foundation of truth was tampered with.
It is Satan who pays the wages of those who are doing his works; it is Satan who pays the wages of those employed by him. It is only in the Devil's 'payroll book' that man's account is entered in debit-red.
But some insist to wrongly imagine God behaving as a natural man. They imagine God to be the judge. prosecutor and the executioner too ... something totally contrary to any manner of justice. They imagine that God behaves as a natural parent; rewarding evil with evil.
The true face of God as revealed in 2nd Cor 5:19 has been stolen from those who believe the 'Universal Reconciliation' doctrines. "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ,
not counting people's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation".
God has never assumed the posture of a prosecutor with His creation. Neither does He sit restless in His supposed vengeance upon man. God's thoughts towards men are not thoughts of retaliation or revenge. When the Bible declares the words: "Vengeance is mine, I will repay", it means that evil incarnate will be avenged --- the real perpetrator of sin: against the, "despotisms, against the powers, against [the master spirits who are] the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spirit forces of wickedness in the heavenly (supernatural) sphere", (Eph 6:10). God detached Himself from them by rejecting them and finally He will avenge Himself by casting them into the lake of fire. In this respect, the work of Jesus has begun: justice, (that is a judgment or separation between good and evil), is being seen to triumph in God's people so that they may be holy and completely pure, (Matt 12:20).
God has never had to reconcile Himself with man. It has always been that man had to reconcile himself with God. But without that knowledge on the firm foundation that God is only and perfectly good, people have been compelled to invent doctrines to camouflage the error ... such as the doctrine of 'All Saved'. Confessing that God pays the wages of sin defames the name of God and is incompatible to the Gospel. Therefore, it should surprise no one that errors have been ushered into the church teachings to conceal such false confessions.