I know that the classic justification for the existence of hell is that "Hell is man's choice, not G-d's choice." This sounds very religiously correct, indeed. But to me, rational it's just a cop-out. I don't believe that anyone in their right mind would choose to burn in hell for eternity. I know I wouldn't. Someone might choose to do every sin under the sun. But that doesn't mean that he wants to go to hell. I think that if G-d gave every person on earth a chance to take a tour of hell, there would not be one single person in 7 billion, who would say "I want to go there."
No - hell is not man's choice; hell is G-d's choice. Man is not omnipotent, mnipresent, omniscient - G-d is. Man did not create hell ":for the devil and his angels," - G-d did. Man doesn't even have that kind of power. G-d started it all. So, I don't know why preachers turn around and say to man, "you started it." But it's not logical.
Plain and simple, there is no burning hell, that some are saying that God created. And here's why. The apostle John wrote: "He that does not love has not come to know God, because
God is love."(1 John 4:8) He then says: "By this the love of God was made manifest in our case, because God sent forth his only-begotten Son into the world that we might gain life through him."(1 John 4:9) Did Jesus show love ? Most certainly yes ! When before a leprous man, with the man earnestly requesting to "make me clean" of his leprosy, Jesus responded: "I want to. Be made clean."(Matt 8:2, 3) Jesus felt
compassion for this leprous man, not indignation.
Jesus perfectly reflected his Father's love, saying that "he that has seen me has seen the Father also." (John 14:9) When "Jesus set out on a tour of all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the good news of the kingdom and curing every sort of disease and every sort of infirmity. On seeing the crowds he
felt pity for them, because they were skinned and thrown about like sheep without a shepherd."(Matt 9:35, 36) Jesus felt pity, not hostility, for the crowds, because these had been "skinned and thrown about" by the religious leaders. Pity does not torment people.
It was the religious leaders who were harsh and abusive, not Jesus. For example, according to the Pharisees distorted view of the sabbath, if a wall fell on a man on the sabbath, the sufferer could not be given relief unless death threatened. A bone could not be set, nor a sprain bandaged. These oppressed the common people, the
‛am ha·’a´rets, (Hebrew meaning "people of the land").
The religious leaders, instead of imitating God's love, opposed Jesus, such as when Jesus healed a man with a withered hand on the sabbath.(Matt 12:9-13) These religious leaders, rather than seeing that Jesus was from God, now sought to destroy him.(Matt 12:14) Just as the religious leaders of Jesus day twisted God's word, so likewise have the religious leaders of Christendom twisted the Bible, having formulated the doctrine of hellfire and distorted what Jesus said, with many Bible translators also guilty in this regard.
These religious leaders, on the one hand, say that God is gracious, merciful, loving, but on the other hand, say that he is fiend, someone who is a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, by promoting the doctrine that he torments people in a hellfire for all eternity, for even simple crimes committed in "this life". Yet these fail to realize that the
penalty for sin, is
not everlasting torment, but
death. The apostle Paul wrote that "
the wages sin pays is death".(Rom 6:23) Hence, once a person has died, he has paid the ultimate penalty for sin (Hebrew
chat·ta’th, meaning "to miss"´), by missing the "mark" of perfect obedience to our Creator. Every person born, with the exception of Jesus, are sinners, and when having died, has paid for their sins. This has wiped the slate "clean" for their sins, unless these have sinned against the holy spirit.(Matt 12:31, 32)
At Jeremiah 32:35, God said of the nation of Israel around 609 B.C.E., saying: "And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to
cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which
I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this
abomination, to cause Judah to
sin."(Jer 32:35)
How could God condemn the nation of Israel for burning their sons and daughters in the fire to Molech, calling it an "abomination", a "sin", and yet torment people in an everlasting fire ? This, does not fit with God's intrinsic quality of love. The religious leaders, in tandem with many Bible translators, have twisted Jesus words at such scriptures as at Matthew 5:22, 29, 30, Matthew 10:28, Matthew 11:23, Matthew 16:18 and Matthew 18:9 by rendering the Greek word
hades as "hell" and the Greek word
Gehenna as "hellfire".
These are presenting God as a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, hideous on one side and loving on the other. This a twisted distortion of our Creator, for to Moses was revealed God's personality, with an angel saying: "
Jehovah, Jehovah, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and
abundant in loving-kindness and truth, preserving loving-kindness for thousands,
pardoning error and transgression and sin."
However, he cannot allow free reign of debase desires, for just as any loving father must impose discipline in a home when the "house rules" are intentionally broken, so likewise must God impose judgments, saying that he will "by no means will he give exemption from punishment, bringing punishment for the error of fathers upon sons and upon grandsons, upon the third generation and upon the fourth generation.”(Ex 34:6, 7)
Hence, our Creator, Jehovah God, does not torment anyone in a "hellfire", which is an "abomination" to him, but insures that justice be served.(Deut 32:4)
