Originally posted by CalJust
And I would say that the god that is espoused by the likes of sonship and Smugface, with his threat of eternal hellfire, also does not exist.
You talk about "the threat of eternal hellfire".
There are laws in place in the natural universe. For example, if I warn you not to jump out of a window of a ten story building because you will fall and die, this is not a "threat" in your sense.
"I THREATEN you sir. If you discard the law of gravity and leap out of that window, you will fall to the pavement below and be crushed to death in the fall. Now your listen to me THREATEN you! Do not disregard my THREAT against you."
This is not a true representation of the warning. You may choose to ignore the law of gravity and leap out the window curtly responding - "Don't you THREATEN me. I don't respond to your threats sir. You don't scare me. And you really have no business threatening me."
But if you jump, something called the law of gravity will take over.
You are free to choose to ignore that law. But once you jump you are not free to negate the consequences of that choice.
The wrath of God us upon all ungodliness and unrighteousness.
God will not give up His hatred for sin.
There is forgiveness in abundance. But there is no forgiveness with a demonstration of the awfulness of sin to God.
As the law of gravity, the wrath of God upon sin abides.
As gravity is impartial so the judging wrath of God.
Maybe millions or billions of years passed where there was no demonstration to God's creatures of His hatred of sin. The originator of sinning may have assumed God was a softy and too nice to endure a challenge to His authority. No angel had ever seen this God's anger.
I am somewhat convinced that Satan thought of God his Creator as a pushover, a whimp who maybe did not know how to deal with revolt and rebellion.
They found out that for the rebels and inventors of sin He prepared eternal punishment, if they would not be reconciled to Him.
" ... Go away from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matt. 25:41)
The
"eternal fire" of verse 41 is the
"eternal punishment" of verse 46. And it doesn't matter if this is symbolism or that a word picture is being used to make point.
The point made is dreadful beyond comprehension. And whether it is literal or figurative the net effect is that ultimate goodness offended by ultimate transgression will receive ultimate punishment.
We shouldn't think about it too much.
We should think about how much the Son of God did to secure salvation from for us from what was prepared for the devil and his angels.
Anyway, going from the Bible's teaching, the concept of God "threatening" us to be extricated from Satan's rebellion is not how I read it. Divine disapproval of sin, revolt, rebellion against God will take place - either at Calvary upon the Son of God for us, or in the lake of fire for those who will not be reconciled to God.