can a believer go to hell?

[cranny]

if a person has believed on Christ as savior will they or can they go to hell or a temporary chastisement  place after they die or will they go straight to heaven?

[Seth]

if a person has believed on Christ as savior will they or can they go to hell or a temporary chastisement  place after they die or will they go straight to heaven?

There is no such thing as hell in the first place. So, no believers will ever go to hell.

[WhiteWings]

if a person has believed on Christ as savior will they or can they go to hell or a temporary chastisement  place after they die or will they go straight to heaven?

They can go to hell. hell=grave

[Lazarus Short]

if a person has believed on Christ as savior will they or can they go to hell or a temporary chastisement  place after they die or will they go straight to heaven?

In the Universalist world, that question is almost a non-sequiter.  Know and believe that our Loving Father will finish in you the work that He began.  God is exceeding good at what He does, and your confidence must be in Him, and your focus not on your present condition in this carnal existence.  On either side of the grave/hell, our journey is not just in space, or even time, but in becoming Christ-like.  As Universalists, we only believe that our fate is dictated, not by our sinning or even our own righteousness (filthy rags), but by the Plan of God, which is to see each of us mature in Christ.  How else is God to become All in all?

[rosered]

 :thumbsup:   Good  thoughts Laz !

[FreeAtLast]

if a person has believed on Christ as savior will they or can they go to hell or a temporary chastisement  place after they die or will they go straight to heaven?

they can go thru the FIRE---yes----for the purpose of correction and purifying---just as the unbelievers will do

[micah7:9]

Well David made a bed there.

[lastpost]

if a person has believed on Christ as savior will they or can they go to hell or a temporary chastisement  place after they die or will they go straight to heaven?

Friend, I believe God has given us the power to discern truth as part of our spiritual make-up, to look at things plainly yet spiritually and decide what is right within. Yet I have also discovered that two people can have different beliefs (or rather viewpoints) and still yet have part of God's Truth.

Take an evil man, one who has lived a totally and completely debased life, as an animal, gratifying every physical desire to the extreme with sensuous overload, living by attacking and robbing people, warping his mind with intoxicants, gaining enjoyment from the downfall of others, from him seeing them in pain, and he himself often inflicting that pain and relishing such an activity. A man who lived all of his life lower than the peaceful animals in the field.

Then in his final few minutes of life, his coward heart cries for release from the impending doom which he now feels with a fear to which he has succumbed as a consequence of the onset of remorse. What do you think? Do you think it is reasonable that this man, now a believer, passes straight into a heaven where he shall immediately enter the society of the blessed ones in the Sanctuary of God?

May I ask you to consider what a habit it is, or a set of habits? I would say that there is no incantation or instant belief in the mind to achieve for this physical beast a transformation into a saint free from repetitive sinning; no formula to instantly change the degenerate wretch into one fit to reside in that which most people assume to be heaven.

According to my understanding there has been an accumulation of habits during his life on earth that requires purification and transformation to a gradual raising up to a higher and purer state of being - an aionion kolasis of Matthew 25:46:

"These shall go away into age-long pruning" or

"These shall go away into age-lasting chastisement"

According to my belief, to that state (aionios kolasis) must his soul gravitate when he quits his earthly casket which goes back to the dust from whence it came. Trangression is punished, as it were, but as a consequence of an abundance of evil acts, and by a process thought out by a loving Father who seeks to lead his child into a condition where his faults can be remedied.

Evil habits are evil habits, and one who has sought and looked for evil all his life cannot all of a sudden look at the Light, he cannot turn that way for his eyes cannot abide it, yet. This is retribution and it will lead to much repentance and the cleansing power of remorse over the evil committed during a whole lifetime's period and the shame this brings. Saved, yes, but so as by fire.

Again, using discernment: What is this man's personality? Is he not an individual with a set of characteristics, an individual with a set of memories, a set of habits which cause his mind to swing in certain directions time after time like the drunkard who does not even realise he puts the firewater to his mouth, a set of the most basest sensuous desires which must be satisfied at all cost and to which no attempt has ever been made to halt their power? So what shall an instant affirmation achieve in one minute? Shall God wipe this man with all of his characteristics and memories out of existence and put a completely different man in his place with a different set of characteristics and memories - indeed a completely different person? No, I would say that is an unlikely proposition. The man must be transformed into the likeness of Christ, not annihilated. The man is saved, he was saved by Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world. Now, in spite of having had the chance to repent many years before, he accepts his salvation, yet he is saved 'so as by fire'. I believe that each is in their own aionion kolasis although they will overlap into others' aionion kolasis as the laws of retribution play their part, but each must be treated as a separate and unique child of God according to their need and in their own turn.

That is my opinion, many do not hold it but I believe that it is part of God's Plan. I am only too aware of the difficulties this sets with the more traditional thought but this is according to the beautiful Plan about which I have been instructed, and for me personally it has more of God in it than anything else I have heard, which clearly is why I believe it. I am not afraid, I have had to claim Jesus Christ Himself as my own because all else was taken, nothing was left but Him. Now I am free, I understand what freedom in Christ is.

So friend, I would suggest to anyone who wishes to follow Christ, be strong and lay aside sin, look steadfastly to Jesus (Heb.12:1-2), follow Him as your Leader, stay close behind the brightest Light steering the train, assess the actions and movements of the Light of the World, listen to Him speak and teach, and seek to imitate in this life, here and now, His Example of purity, humility, truthfulness, humble selflessness, self-sacrifice, courage and endurance, to name but a few of His Divine Characteristics.

PEACE

[eaglesway]

My opinion is that even after a life of habitual, willful sin, if a person repents and calls upon the Lord for forgiveness, they will receive it, and the blood of Jesus is sufficient to cleanse them.

I don't think crying out to God out of fear of judgment without remorse accomplishes that.

Some save with mercy.....Some save with fear hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

[sheila]

the mad naked man among the tombs comes to mind. People attempted to go get him,clothe him etc.......

  and received injuries and blows.  Wasn't a problem for Jesus to take care of,though.


  what is impossible with men..is possible with God.  and THANK GOD FOR THAT,FOR ALL OUR SAKES!

[Seth]

My opinion is that even after a life of habitual, willful sin, if a person repents and calls upon the Lord for forgiveness, they will receive it, and the blood of Jesus is sufficient to cleanse them.

No doubt. He is faithful to forgive.

[FreeAtLast]

the mad naked man among the tombs comes to mind. People attempted to go get him,clothe him etc.......

  and received injuries and blows.  Wasn't a problem for Jesus to take care of,though.


  what is impossible with men..is possible with God.  and THANK GOD FOR THAT,FOR ALL OUR SAKES!

true indeed  :dsunny: :dsunny:

just like the man born blind--they thought it was his parents Sin that made him that way

But he was born that way for the Glory of Yah to be revealed in his time.

Yah can take impossibilities and make them Possible--not only possible but turn them around for his Glory

Thank Yah that he opens blinded eyes so that they may see  :dsunny: :dsunny: :dsunny:

[lastpost]

We can assume that the man's call was genuine.

If habits are instantly perfected by such a call, then it would seem strange that a number of callers have reverted to their old habits and they have to repent again and again. That is my point.

It would be hard to go amongst the millions naming themselves Christians today and not find more than a few who, after their initial zeal, took up their old habits, perhaps not as heavily in most cases. The point is that the habit of sinning does not change with the change called death, in my opinion. A person may become a believer, and while there is a great internal change where the commitment is made at the deepest level possible, the habits of sinning can be reawakened because they have not been overcome and worked out completely. It is a process.

In the case of our theoretical beast-man, even if you believe that he has suddenly received enough spiritual credit to remove the consequences of his past life's evil actions, he still has his lifelong evil character and mind with his habitual way of thinking - it is who he is, after all. His chastisement period will be lessened because of his repentance and the remorse, but in my opinion he cannot be instantly like those saints of purity in his character because he was and still is worse than an animal, he must become like saints by going through the processes set up by God in aionion kolasis.

I think that this progression or learning period of growth can be seen in shadow form in the processes found in this earth life, which I believe is given to us by God for our learning. Beast to saint in an instant, personally I think that is wishful thinking. It seems to me that transformation is God's way. I see it and witness it all around.

It is not a case of God swapping the beast-man like a soiled doll in a shop window for a completely different new doll. God will clean up the old doll - the same doll.

Still, it will not be all that long and we shall see for certain.

Peace.

PS. God's World, the Real One, in my opinion, is so utterly lovely that there is not one who will feel that they want to give so much back to God for what He has given so freely. My last thought is, so how can this desire be achieved - I do not think just psalm-singing for eternity will make a child of God happy, he or she will want to give so much more....

[eaglesway]

As I see it, it is about life and death.When we believe, coming under the Lordship of Jesus, believing in His resurrection- the natural man is crucified. His sentence has been passed in Christ.

By faith we reckon the old man dead and if we are blessed he gets buried in baptism, which fortifies our conscience against condemnation.

many Christians do not overcome because they have not been equipped to do so. They have not been taught the full efficacy of redemption. They have not received an effectual baptism. They have not received the overflow of the Spirit. They have been taught law-based, works based religion. they are like a valley of dry bones awaiting the call to life, the activation and assembling power of the Spirit of God.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God- but the word of God is barely taught and mixed with religious dogma that does not impart life.

Nevertheless, salvation is a full assurance and once placed within the Father's hand our soul is secure and only the most grievous persistence in mortal sin can place our deliverance in jeopardy- altho we may lose our reward(sonship and priesthood and inheritance in Christ).

"If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness"

"Confess your faults, one to another and pray for one another that you may be healed"

"If we walk in the light as He is in the light we have fellowship(union, harmony) together and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin"

Legalism and religiosity has driven this kind of fellowship clean out of the churches and with it went the victory of a great many Christians over sin- and where the fleshly habits of some return upon them in our common defeat, most of the others are no better off- bound in deception and religious arrogance and legalistic and theological strivings.

The church at Corinth was predominantly carnal, immature and a good example of this I think- headed in the direction we are fully settled in today :o)

[micah7:9]

Rom 8:1  There is, then, now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit;

[marie glen]

the mad naked man among the tombs comes to mind. People attempted to go get him,clothe him etc.......

  and received injuries and blows.  Wasn't a problem for Jesus to take care of,though.


  what is impossible with men..is possible with God.  and THANK GOD FOR THAT,FOR ALL OUR SAKES!

:iagree: :iagree: :banana:

I totally agree! And imo, it is not any human's choice.. so why would there be punishment, chastisement, cleansing different than our own?

It's my belief the "outer darkness" is to be without Jesus, thus w/o God, especially after being awoken in the 2nd resurrection where folks will rise still "in their sins" but in the light and open view and sight of the Blazing Light of the Holy Father and His Throne..

...It's my belief, at which point (2nd resurrection) begins a long day of weeping and even gnashing of teeth, a day of great repentance.. coinciding to ancient Israel's Day of Atonement, a day of national/collective repentance and weeping (the fall holy days prophesying the long 2nd advent of Jesus, like the spring ones did His first).

I don't believe one 'goes to heaven' nor goes to  :eek: :eek: 'hell' at ones death (except of course we all go to the grave/translated 'hell'.. "all meet in sheol").. But like 1 thess 4 those asleep in death will awaken at the last day.. the 1st resurrection/of believers, at Jesus' return and the rest a thousand years later as rev 20 (imo, very plainly) says..

Imagine awakening still in your flaws and sins, to find yourself facing the Bright and Holy Throne of God, and myriad angels, etc..

I don't think we think about this. As though those who rise in the 2nd resurrection do so without minds.. As though our heavenly Father, who is love, would simply awaken them and quickly toss them into the flames of chastisement without ado... Without His Spirit/Presence working to convince.. as it always & ever does..

Nope, I think most of the 2nd resurrection, if not "all" will repent during that day... a day of the judging of all things and all human history.. a day of great review (surely? why would our God of infinite wisdom not have a great day of review? Every good teacher knows the value of review and summary.. and surely the Holy Ghost is the best of aLL teachers!?)

"All will remember and turn to the LORD." (Ps 22:27) When?

Why, if it is God who chooses, would more drastic measures be required for the unsaved after death, than for the unsaved before death? When all had been done individually for us, why would the 2nd resurrection simply be treated as a lump?
    :smile: :cloud9:

[FreeAtLast]

We can assume that the man's call was genuine.

If habits are instantly perfected by such a call, then it would seem strange that a number of callers have reverted to their old habits and they have to repent again and again. That is my point.

It would be hard to go amongst the millions naming themselves Christians today and not find more than a few who, after their initial zeal, took up their old habits, perhaps not as heavily in most cases. The point is that the habit of sinning does not change with the change called death, in my opinion. A person may become a believer, and while there is a great internal change where the commitment is made at the deepest level possible, the habits of sinning can be reawakened because they have not been overcome and worked out completely. It is a process.

In the case of our theoretical beast-man, even if you believe that he has suddenly received enough spiritual credit to remove the consequences of his past life's evil actions, he still has his lifelong evil character and mind with his habitual way of thinking - it is who he is, after all. His chastisement period will be lessened because of his repentance and the remorse, but in my opinion he cannot be instantly like those saints of purity in his character because he was and still is worse than an animal, he must become like saints by going through the processes set up by God in aionion kolasis.

I think that this progression or learning period of growth can be seen in shadow form in the processes found in this earth life, which I believe is given to us by God for our learning. Beast to saint in an instant, personally I think that is wishful thinking. It seems to me that transformation is God's way. I see it and witness it all around.

It is not a case of God swapping the beast-man like a soiled doll in a shop window for a completely different new doll. God will clean up the old doll - the same doll.

Still, it will not be all that long and we shall see for certain.

Peace.

PS. God's World, the Real One, in my opinion, is so utterly lovely that there is not one who will feel that they want to give so much back to God for what He has given so freely. My last thought is, so how can this desire be achieved - I do not think just psalm-singing for eternity will make a child of God happy, he or she will want to give so much more....

as the scriptures saith--let them who nameth the name of Messiah depart from Sin(transgressing the Law)

or if they continue to to so--Judgement for them and The Fire

[Jason76]

I think what he really means is "Can a believer go to the "Lake of Fire"?