All this to say, if I cant trust that Matthew 25 is actually from the lips of Jesus – man I’m throwing in the towel. Time for me to go get legitimate profession!.

As to your second point – I tend to agree that the Protestant focus on Grace as simply the unmerited favor of God – has taken us so far away from living a life of holiness and righteousness, both in the world of personal morality and social morality, that we have to explain away the call to these things in Mt 25.

This is why I am a Methodist, I believe with John Wesley that the goal of the Christian Life is to be “Perfected in love in this lifetime”, and that as followers of Christ we are to “Earnestly Strive after” just this. (Taken from the Ordination vows of course). The goal is to be built up “into that holiness without which no man can see the lord” JW.

Your conclusion only holds if the reporting from the Gospels are held to be absolutely true. Not to mention the vision reported in the Apocalypse of John. The question I would raise is: how would this argument stand up with someone who doesn’t understand or profess the concept of inerrancy?

On a different idea – I find it interesting to note that even the Goats in Matthew 25 can identify the LORD, they aren’t being called to task for adultery or blasphemy but instead if they cared for the poor, sick and imprisoned.

What’s even more interesting is that there seems to be lacking a aspect of repentance – it seems to suggest that even followers of Jesus who do not show kindness to the “least of these” might find themselves looking at the sheep from across the aisle.

The Idea that the nature of “God” as we Christians understand it, is loving, compassionate, and sacrificial is born particularly out of the life of Jesus. It is Jesus who represents God’s willingness to give up everything, put on human flesh, walk among us, suffer and die for the sins of the world. And yet from the God-Man who was the living embodiment of the Love of the God – we have the introduction (again in a very new way) of the concept of Hell. This concept is not an amorphous separation or a gentle longing to be in a different place – rather its described in the harshest possible terms (Lake of fire, second death, weeping and nashing, darkness, etc). And its described (perhaps most strongly in Matthew 15, but certainly in a huge volume of the New Testament texts) as a place were this loving, caring sacrificial God chooses to send those who have rejected his offer of salvation and eternal life.

So I have two choices, it seems. One is to say that well – Jesus didn’t really mean that the Father had appointed him to be the Judge of each human at the end of time – this was merely hyperbolic or metaphorical. Perhaps this could be the case if it was an isolated mention of such a place and such a process at the end of time, but the language of eternal eschatalogical Judgment is scatter shot throughout the Gospels and letters, and the sheer volume of its presence in the NT would make excising and/or allegoraizing it problematic.

Or, I can come to the conclusion that Jesus intended to teach that there was an actual Judgment coming, and that he was the dude with the responsibility to pull it off. All things being equal, the more simple explanation tends to be the accurate one (Head nod to Occom), I think that its clearly the Case that this is what Jesus believed, particularly about the nature of Eternity, and his role in its consummation.

Now further, I can come to believe that Jesus was A. An impostor and Fraud, or B. Incarnate Deity. If I choose the second, I’m left with the Question, why would God choose to send someone to hell, Unless it was the necessary corollary to His very nature.

Conclusion – The God of Love and Justice, has no choice (I know strong words) but to make eternal damnation a very real option in the discharging of his self instituted duties. His own integrity demands it.

I guess a important question for me is: is death the end of the game? To put it another way – it is only possible to achieve salvation only through faith professed in this life? If so – what does it say about the limiting power of death? If not, how might that reframe our thoughts about the afterlife?

Questions of soteriology and eschatology such as these don’t really have sure answers, but sometimes it feels important to struggle with them anyway.

deviantmonk – Beautiful and elegant response. I really like the assertion of a self-imposed prison and the focus on the person’s related-ness to God. Good stuff. I will definitely use your insights here in conversations in the future. Thank you.

Chuck – Interesting. I am going to have to think about your assertion here a bit. I agree that discipline and removing evil is an important part of a community. However, I disagree with the assertion that God sending people to a place of eternal punishment is essential to the nature of God. I do need to think about this a bit more. The comments here have really got me thinking.

What do others think? Is eternal punishment necessarily a possibility? Does God send individuals to hell? Do individuals experience hell of their own choosing?

Now, one other thing is that the concept of Hell is, in the scriptures at least, primarily introduced by Jesus himself. The Lake of Fire, second death, etc language is fairly novel with Jesus. As Jesus is seen by most (Even Non Christians) as being the embodiment of Love – should we then not assume that Hell is a necessary corollary to the love and justice of God. That it is precisely because of God’s love for his people that Hell (A place of separation from the unfaithful) is necessary.

I’ve always found it interesting that in the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st the trend among some has been to ‘tone down’ Hell by saying it is separation from God, which it certainly is. However, it seems to me that upon reflecting on exactly what separation from God would entail, being literally roasted alive would probably be preferable.

I think the most important aspect is to deal with the punishment facet of it. If, as you have mentioned, we look at the moral responsibility with which humanity is endowed, as well as the positive will of God that all should be saved and live in love with God, then Hell becomes less of a punishment and more of a self-imposed prison in which those who reject God lock the door on themselves in their attempt to keep God out forever.