Jersey, this is in response to what you asked, and to avoid overloading the post with weasel wording, let me just say that unless otherwise specified, it’s all purely IMHO.
I see God as predominantly a loving Father, whose will is that none should perish. However, having invested us with free will, He must make room for those who will not turn to Him. I don’t see Hell as punishment for sin, but rather as the inevitable consequence of sin. And by that I don’t mean particular sinful acts but the state of putting something else – anything else – in the place in one’s heart that only God should be in. Just as surely as falling off a cliff will lead to injuries and possible death, continual sin will lead to spiritual death. The term that suggests itself to me is “the ashes of a soul” – what was once a living, burning spirit has reduced itself to embers and ash, and is no longer capable of making decisions, but only of feeling a unsatisfiable hunger and regret for lost choices.
Against this bleak picture is the fact that God never gives up on people. There is nothing a human being can do that will cause Him to stop loving and seeking for that person to return to Him.
So I do not disbelieve in Hell – it must be there for free will to have any real meaning, or else God’s gift of free will is like a parent saying to a growing child, “You can go anywhere you want (so long as you don’t leave our yard).” But I firmly believe that God will keep on being constant in His unconditional love for every person until there is no longer a person left to love, until he or she has burnt him/herself out and become merely that “ash.”
This is part of why I have been so vehement on the subject of people quoting “Thou shalt nots” from the Bible – The Jews pictured God as predominantly a judge who strictly enforces rules, and Jesus’s teachings, especially those where he was confronted by the Pharisees, focus on God’s love. To be sure, he wants to see moral behavior, especially as regards our responsibility to show love to our fellow man. The parable of the sheep and goats suggests that we will indeed be judged according to our works, but with mercy if we have acknowledged Him as Lord and Savior and tried to the best of our ability to do His will. My honorary granddaughter is ten; she is quite competent for her age at housekeeping chores. But nobody expects perfection from her – just that she do the best she can, considering her age, at the chores she’s assigned. But to me the key is to judge oneself, perhaps harshly because only we individually can know how we are falling short, and to be merciful to others, because we have not walked in their shoes and do not know how it is with them, what they can and cannot accomplish. It is, of course, my job, as it is yours, to encourage and to admonish those who claim to be heirs by adoption and grace of our Father, and hence are our brothers and sisters in Him.
Somebody once spoke of repentance in a sermon I heard in words that struck home to me: Repentance is not turning from a sinful pleasure so much as it is turning to a new, richer, and fuller life in Christ. And the needs and desires that were filled temporarily and imperfectly by the sin are instead filled full measure, pressed down and running over, in the love and peace that comes from Him.
Heaven and Hell are not places, or anything analogous to places. Heaven is being in the presence of God, feeling the richness of His mercy pervade you, and Hell is the state of burned-out privation, despair, and near-annihilation that results from a total absence both of Him and of any freedom and ability to change that you may have had in the past but no longer have.
I think I got a little too mystical in writing that, but does it help to answer your question of me?
