Is God Any Different Than Satan?

thoughts on my convo with Matthew Korpman (episode 117)

Oct 09, 2020

This was a startling thought for me, maybe it was for you too. If there really is a place of eternal torture or separation from God or whatever and this is a place that God not only allows to exist, but brought into existence with his own power.

Well.

Then is God really any better than Satan?

I mean, WWSD? He would create an eternal pit of fire where people are tortured for all of eternity.

Right?

And yet for many Christians around the world THIS is the persona they have attached to God - an all-powerful judge whose idea of justice is eternal torture for believing the wrong things about his son.

Holding fast to the doctrine of hell, then, morphs God and Satan into one - it makes them one in the same.

And.

So.

This is why.

… I adamantly and unapologetically speak out against it. This is why we MUST. Right? I mean, how can we not? If we’re going to tell people of God’s love and tell people that God is love and tell people that God is forgiving, that he welcomes everyone, that no one is turned away … then how can we possibly keep the eternal torture card in our back pocket?

Either …

God is all good all the time.

OR.

God is good sometimes and terrible other times.

OR.

God is no different than Satan and is a terrible spiritual force with terrifying powers.

After talking with Matthew I feel even more confident that we need to keep pulling away at the doctrine of hell, it needs to go. And it needs to go because it’s very existence negates everything else we teach about the God who is love.

A God who is love doesn’t have an eternal torture pit in his back pocket, but Satan most certain does. A God of love works to extinguish and empty such places whereas Satan seeks to keep such places alive and full.

God isn't Satan.

Satan isn’t God.

And therefore hell doesn’t exist.

✌️

Glenn

NEXT WEEK.

Next week we talk to returning guest, Keith Giles. He’ll talk to us about his book “Jesus Undefeated” where he takes a theological and historical approach to poking holes in the doctrine of eternal torture.

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“I haven’t stepped foot in a church building in about 3 years. I feel like this post is about to border somewhere between a confession and declaration of freedom.

It feels like a confession because.

Well.

I grew up in a conservative evangelical world where you never missed church and if you did miss church for anything other than your own death or the death of someone close to you … eyebrows were raised and whispers slithered their way through the congregation about how you were “backsliding” or “going astray”. Your name became the focus of prayer meetings not so much because people were praying for you, but because they were talking about you …”

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