I want to expand on why I am willing to challenge the widely accepted idea of hell being a punishment that will last forever. (This is a build from my post from yesterday, The Suffering. Please read that one first.)

First, I still believe what John the Baptist said, Jesus is “The Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.” God does not fail, but satan has a way of mincing words – and we have a way of wanting to build walls and legalities so that we can understand, unintentionally limiting an infinite God to our finite understanding. 

The specific word that came into question for me when talking about hell was the word eternal. 

Oswald Chambers says, “Never confound eternal life with immortality. Eternal has reference to the quality of life, not to its duration. Eternal life is the life Jesus exhibited when He was here on earth, with neither time nor eternity in it, because it is the life of God Himself (see John 17:3  And this is the way to have eternal life – to know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one you sent to earth.)

This word eternal is used many times in the New Testament describing Life in relationship with God as in John 17:3 AND with or without God as in Matthew 18:8 So if your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one hand or one foot than to be thrown into eternal fire with both of your hands and feet.

Dean Hough found this about the word aionios which is the Greek word for eternal, and then he expanded on his findings. I encourage you to look the verses up as you follow along, and don’t be afraid to search the Greek translation, here is a good tool for that: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/2_thessalonians/1.htm. Also the Message bible seems to really get at the heart of it. I found the NLT version adds the word forever where it was not in the Greek. I don’t believe this to be a conspiracy – but one of those many instances where we use our humanness to explain and we end up explaining away a Sovereign God. From Dean Hough: 

Of all widely used, modern attempts to define these terms, I have found the concluding definition given in THE VOCABULARY OF THE GREEK TESTAMENT (edited by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan) most helpful. Concerning aionios we read, “In general, the word depicts that of which the horizon is not in view . . .” (p.16). If the horizon of the extermination spoken of by Paul in 2 Thessalonians 1:9 is simply not in view, then we can see that what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:22 can truly occur. The same all who are dying in Adam, which includes some who incur eonian extermination, can indeed eventually be vivified in Christ. The Bible, in fact, does not speak of judgment and condemnation, death and destruction, hades and Gehenna, or any of these serious consequences of sin, as unending. It may refer to them as not having the end in view, but none of these fearful works of God can keep Him from achieving His will (1Tim.2:4); reconciling all through the blood of Christ’s cross (Col.1:20, and becoming All in all (1 Cor.15:28).

1 Corinthians 15:28 Then, when all things are under his authority, the Son will put himself under God’s authority, so that God, who gave his Son authority over all things, will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere.

I believe our God has come to save. Jesus broke down the doors that separated us from Him, let us look and journey heavenward into the Eternal… the Infinite.