(April 9, 2013 at 1:03 pm)Tex Wrote: Finally, I think you're confusing two things with your comment "if jesus had offered to take the place of even one sinner...". First, if Jesus had not come, the conclusion of all people was death, not hell. This is first stated in Genesis 3 and really echoed in Ecclesiastes 9. Jesus' undue suffering allows us to be resurrected eternally, thus undoing the death sentence. Everyone is resurrected, believers and non-believers. From here, the new covenant (biblical concept, would take a while to explain, just trust me, means "contract" or "agreement") between God and an individual is what allows for "eternal life" and prevents "eternal death" (not bodily). At the very root of the covenant, the basic necessity is trust in God. There are things this leads to, but the foundation of this is at least some degree of trust. If the relationship is rejected, now hell comes into play. This isn't a place where God tortures you because you won't vote for him in the universal popularity contest. This is the place you go on your own free will because you don't want to be near God. This sucks for you because here there is sin, and the believers will never see sin again. God allows this. I imagine hell to be a little like the earth we have now with no death. If we do not take evil out of the equation, the lack of "death" is a curse, not a blessing.
What if I want to die?
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." -Einstein
