Does hell have to be for eternity?

One of the biggest objections about the final destination of unrepentant sinners is “why would God, send someone to hell for all eternity when the sin was only a few minutes.Well, let’s not look at hell for a few minutes. I want to focus more for a few minutes on the originator of everything. Let’s look at God for a few moments.

Who is God, once we understand a little bit more who God is, His standard, and His eternal status, then maybe we will understand a little more about the opposite.

If we look at Isaiah chapter 6, we have here Isaiah looking in the heavens and seeing a heavenly sight. He sees the seraphims chanting “holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts…” Let’s do a little grammar analysis. In English, French, Spanish and many more Latin derived languages, when someone wants to put some emphasis on something, they scream it, change the tone of their voice. When writing it, they either underline it, bold it, highlight it and so on. But in the Hebrew, they repeated it. If someone repeated the same word or phrase more than once, it was something to take notice. How much more when repeated 3 times? We cannot comprehend with our feeble, sinning human minds and intellect the intensity, and the magnitude of this statement. To mention the word “holy” 3 times marks God as being infinitely holy. And we don’t even make this “scale” if I can use this term loosely. And in God’s eternal holiness, when we sin, it’s not that the sin is so “bad”, it’s that who that sin is against is so eternally holy, that the only possibility of punishment must also be eternal. Still difficult to grasp, but now it puts a little more perspective on why a sin is so grave. So when someone asks me why God would send someone to hell for all eternity, it’s not fair, God is not good and so on. I reply like this….which is still weak…but it’s the best we can do in human words.

Man, from the initial fall in the garden of Eden, man has fallen so far in sin (this is covered in my depravity post) that he doesn’t even recognize how sinful he is, how holy God is and how eternally offensive sin is to such a holy God. And when people ask why would God punish someone for not believing in Christ for salvation? Let’s look at a different perspective, but I feel it all ties it together. Picture a mother and a child. An international crisis has just erupted with a disease wiping out the human race. Spread by breath, and upon contracting the illness, you have 6 months to live if your immune system is very very strong. Most people survive less than 4 months. So you try to live to the best of your ability and knowing it will only be a matter of time before it hits your area, try to enjoy life as you know it. All of a sudden, your child is starting to show some symptoms of this illness. You bring him/her to the doctor and with tears in their eyes, they give you the bad news. Your loved one has contracted it. So, you go home and try to plan a trip and a few other things to enjoy your last few months together. But about 3-4 weeks later the symptoms seem to have vanished. So very curious, you bring your child back to the hospital, they check him/her out and tell you the miraculous news. Your child has beat the illness. They are in complete shock and have no idea why. So they ask you for a blood sample from your child, to see if they can find out why. 2 weeks later the doctors call you for a meeting. They advise you that they found something spectacular in the blood cells that combats the virus with success. And they have found a way to invent a vaccine for the entire planet. However, it will come with a cost of sacrificing your child in order to make enough for the world. So you tell them you want to think about it for a few weeks, as you know you will lose your child forever should you decide to be the “hero”. After 3 weeks, your child comes to you and says “mommy, let me go, I will donate my blood to save the world”. With tears, you reluctantly agree. You call the doctors and advise them of your decision. They are sad and ecstatic at the same time. So they give you a few more days to spend time together and then you bring your child in. The vaccine is made and the announcement is made. Now you sit and wait and think to yourself “I just saved the world of this awful disease”. The media announces all people have to do is make the request, all will be delivered to the closest clinic and costs are all paid. But you have to make the request. Now all of a sudden, world wide, people start rejecting the offer, they start claiming to be close to a vaccine themselves. They have their own way of doing and refuse the vaccine. Therefore making the statement “my child died in vain, no one wants the remedy”.
How would you feel if this really happened and it happened to you?
I hope this puts more perspective on why God’s wrath is serious and eternal and real on the sinner. I know for myself, if that was my child, I would have the biggest vengeance on the world so how much more does God have the right to do this. Believe on Christ, before it’s too late and you cross to the other side.