The Everlasting Punishment of Hell is a core Christian teaching
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE:
The scriptures speak of a place of everlasting punishment. Jesus said he would tell some people to get away from him and go into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and the angels of the Devil. These he said would endure everlasting punishment.
This should be taken literally as it was spoken to ordinary simple people. It is a rule that you interpret whatever a teacher says by putting yourself in the shoes of his listeners. Jesus was an experienced preacher and knew his audience.
This tells us to take the fire literally.
This tells us to take the punishment being everlasting literally. He said the good go to everlasting life and the bad to everlasting punishment meaning that if one is not everlasting neither is the other.
It is strange how some don't want to believe in the fire when Jesus tells the condemned that they are cursed and belong with the Devil and his angels. It is like not wanting to believe that a person is scalded in the torture camp but saying they will be whipped until the bones are bare. They are clearly trying to attract people who want to believe feel-good rubbish.
Some say he didn't say they were going into eternal punishing but eternal punishment. But the two can mean the same thing. They want to argue that punishment could be extinction in the fire. In other words, death. So God raises them to life as Jesus says. And to kill them? So now they ie again and this death was eternal for they would never rise again. This is nonsense. God doesn't need to go to the trouble of making a fire to burn the rubbish in. He can get rid of the evil people instantly.
Our Blessed Lord and saviour Jesus Christ was asked what the greatest commandment was. He said that the greatest was to love the God of Israel with all your heart and soul and mind. The second greatest was to love your neighbour as yourself. So loving God is more important than loving yourself or your neighbour. It follows that you should not use what your neighbour wants to believe in as a guide to what God should do or stand for.
All sin is breaking the greatest commandment to love God. Therefore all sin is equal in malice and selfishness. In the world, we cannot punish all sin equally. We have to let mild blasphemers off and incarcerate murderers for life. Yet one is not better than the other before God (Romans 3). All will be punished equally in Hell.
Those who commit adultery or homosexuality or incest or who fornicate with prostitutes or who are ordained as Catholic priests are predestined to everlasting damnation.
