Christianity - A Journey from Facts to Fiction — Page 50
50 Christianity – A Journey from Facts to Fiction His ‘Son’ suffer the agony of three days in hell? What was hap- pening to God the ‘Son’? Was he divided into two persons, with two forms and substances? One form suffering in hell and the other completely outside, not suffering at all? If God the Father was suffering then what was the need of creating the Son, when He himself could have suffered? So this is a very direct question. Why did He not just suffer Himself? Why draw out such a difficult plan to resolve the problem of forgiveness? The Punishment of Fire Here, the question of hell to which, according to the Christian doctrine, Jesus as was confined, should be examined more closely. What sort of hell was it, Was it the same hell we read about in the New Testament, which says: "The Son of man will send his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all evildoers, and throw them into the furnace of fire; there men will weep and gnash their teeth. " (Matt 13:41–42) Before we proceed further, it has to be very clearly understood what the New Testament means by the punishment of fire or the punishment of hell. Is it a fire which burns the soul, or is it a carnal fire which consumes the body and thereby tortures the soul? Do the Christians believe that after death we will return to the same body which the soul left behind to disintegrate to earth and ashes, or will there be a new body created for each soul and will the resurrected person experience a sort of reincarnation?