Theologians feel the doctrine of eternal torment is important to put “the fear of God” into people, and impart an urgency to spread the gospel message to the lost. True. But look at the other side of that coin. How many hear that gospel message and reject it because this “God of love” who wants them in heaven with Him is such a sadistic monster as to eternally torment the vast majority of His creatures? Could you really love a god who condones an infinite amount of pain in punishment just for the sin of failing to believe in Jesus, even for someone born in sin, with blind eyes and a hard heart, who never heard the gospel?

Yet that is exactly what religionists expect us to do. They quote Romans 1:20 to say that even those who never heard the gospel, those who are “dead in their transgressions and sins...” (Eph 2:1) are “without excuse” because they should have seen Christ in His creation. So God is perfectly just in casting them all into hell. Well, yeah. Seeing God’s glorious works ought to cause everyone to seek to know and worship the Creator.  But face it, most don’t. They “suppress the truth in unrighteousness” in their own self-focussed pride. For that, the passage is clear, they must be punished. But eternal torment? “…how can they believe in Him whom they’ve not heard? And how can they hear without a preacher?” (Rom 10:14) You and I instinctively know that it would not be just to torment someone for not receiving a gospel that he’s never even heard. Jesus knew it too, for He said to the Pharisees to whom He had just revealed Himself, “If you were blind (talking about those who had never seen or known Him) you would have no sin…” and later, “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.” (Jn 9:41 and 15:42)

There are other seeming conflicts in Scripture, but that is the worst. The good news is that there is a way to resolve this conflict without violating the clear Word of God. So give me some time to make my case, and may the good Lord confirm to your heart by His Spirit whatever is from Him, and whatever is mere speculation on my part. At the very least it makes for some good debate and a great story.

I’ve gone into this in great length in my book, but allow me to summarize the key points here to whet your appetite. First, time comes in moments, days, years, millennia, ages, eons, or whatever, ticking off inexorably from beginning to end. The one flavor that time does NOT come in is eternity. This is a crucial distinction. Time can never touch eternity, though eternity does encompass every moment of time from beginning to end. That is because time involves change, from day to day growing up, growing older, maturing, getting disciplined, learning wisdom and knowledge – time always has a past and a future. But eternity has none of that.

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