Posted by Michaelsei (that's me!) on Helium.com
God is sovereign. God is Holy, Pure, and Just. God hates sin and evildoers. God created man in His image.
Man erred from conforming to God's attributes. Thus, sin was brought into the world. From Adam, the sin nature passed from father to son, on and on. All have sinned. God cannot stand sin to be in His presence.
Hell is real, but hell is not a place. It is being without a place. It is being away from the presence of God. Hell may be depicted as a place of fiery torment, but it is usually depicted as a place of outer darkness. A cold, dank morgue where solitude and fear reign over you. You scream and cry out for death to take you, but death has already taken your mortal body. You are experiencing what is called the second death. Your immortal soul is separated from your creator. You have been cut off from your source of life, but again not in the corporeal sense. This death is not a perishing away but an eternal perishing that ceases not. This is hell.
It ought to deter evildoers. The commandments given to the nation of Israel served to conform them to God's image. In so doing, evil was not allowed to persist. Capital crimes required capital punishments. Lesser crimes required retribution. If I was starving, I may steal to replenish my strength, but I would be required to pay back many times more than I stole. If I took a life in premeditated murder, my blood would be required; however, if I committed manslaughter in the heat of a struggle unpremeditated, then I would have refuge according to the Law. Capital crimes are deterred by capital punishments, this is God's design. On the contrary, not every individual is unilaterally deterred from doing what they will. They will serve as examples and will be punished.
On deterrence, another example is Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan was an authoritarian ruler who went far beyond God's perfect justice to his own form of deterrence. I use him only as an example of how punishments are deterrents. He used capital punishment even in cases of lesser crimes. He achieved a peace that would still be seen in his grandson's lifetime. When Kublai Khan was in power, Marco Polo passed through the region, living the adventure story that he would later bring home.
Ultimately, God determines the number of the elect. However, in a society where God's justice is utilized, the restraint of the Holy Spirit will be seen at work in that nation against evildoers. Hell can be lauded as the final punishment for evildoers, and for some, I hope and pray that it is a deterrent from evil. The only thing that he would lack is to seek after Jesus Christ and His salvation.
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