HOW LONG WILL GOD PUNISH WRONGDOERS?

In the New Testament the Greek word most translators give as “forever" or "eternal" is “aion” from  which comes the English word eon, meaning a period of time or an age. The related Greek adjective aionian means age-long. The Hebrew equivalent is “olam” also basically means "age," or sometimes “world."

The words in both languages are for periods of time that are long but of indefinite and unknown length.  None of the words refers to a known set period of time or an infinite length of time.

The earliest Christians were Greek Jews so they spoke Biblical Greek and Hebrew.  They knew a scripture that we today think of as saying God uses “everlasting” fire actually spoke of a fiery or fire-like punishment of long but not eternal duration.

This agrees with 1 John 4:8 saying that God’s main characteristic is “love.”  To be just, our heavenly Father appropriately punishes misconduct but His punishment or chastisement is never inappropriate, unduly harsh, unjust, unfair, off-balance, or unloving.

Besides mistranslation of the Greek and Hebrew words, another factor to consider is history.  For example, the Jewish historian Josephus wrote  that the Pharisees branch of Judaism taught that sin would bring eternal torment.  Of course, Greek and Roman pagans also believed in eternal punishment. 

Today, too, many groups stress the idea of “eternal” punishment.   You can only present the facts to individuals in such groups and they have to decide if to change their minds or not.  However, sometimes even when they don’t seem to agree with you, secretly within they do.

Getting to sleep after death is peaceful, and so is it truly justice for violent, wicked people to get to just sleep forever, their victims thus not having lost out on justice?  Should the only punishment for a person who killed and tortured a million people be the same as for others who did fewer things that are wrong?  Yet the Watchtower Society over Jehovah’s Witnesses says they and only they have all the right answers, that all the dead just sleep, both the evildoers and peaceful people whom the evildoers hurt!  Watchtower says it’s unfair for God to punish the wicked with fire as Christ and others say and most all Christians believe.  They teach all verses that tell of punishment by fire or torment must just all be symbolic.   Regardless of Watchtower's views, if God judges that some kind of strong punishment does befit some extremely wicked people, perhaps even to varying degrees, well, then whatever God may have decided is right.  His being God, who is totally holy or perfect, means that His judgments are also perfectly right and fair. 

Watchtower says it’s unfair for God to punish the wicked with fire as Christ and others say and most all Christians believe.  They teach all verses that tell of punishment by fire or torment must just all be symbolic.   On the other hand, if God judges that severe punishment does befit some extremely wicked people, perhaps even to varying degrees, well, then whatever God may have decided is right.  His being God, who is totally holy or perfect, means that His judgments are also perfectly right.

So for Watchtower heads to go beyond what God has inspired in the Bible, or to judge as fair or unfair what the scriptures say, shows an extreme arrogance.  When they add or take away words, as when they deleted Lord and added Jehovah in the New Testament, that too is wrong, dangerous and grievous.     

When we read Acts 24:25 (please do so) and discover that Paul told Felix there is a coming scary judgment, are we to just out-of-hand mark it as just being symbolic, or didn’t Paul indeed speak of a scary judgment and mean exactly what he said?  Paul also wrote, “keep working out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12), he also clearly meant what he said.  Just sleep away forever would not be a “punishment” that would lead anyone to be in fear of it or trembling. 

Getting to sleep forever could even be viewed as a reward for evildoers, a comforting thought for them when they get ready to go kill or otherwise harm innocent victims.  It is definitely an anti-Christ view and misteaching. Because Watchtower teaches JWs to say the wicked sleep in death instead of being punished by literal fire, as if punished by fire by being totally isolated from God, etc, their teaching also diminishes the Good News that Christ died so that all might be saved, stated by Christ at John3:16.  It’s a kind of denial of Christ and the goodness of his having given up his perfect human body and life, the Good News that humans can be resurrected and live happily.

The Bible says that at death the body is no longer conscious, but other scriptures show that the soul continues and definitely is conscious.  The unconscious body turns back into dust, but the soul moves on as a non-fleshly being, that is as a spirit.   The Watchtower Society’s misteaching, which they push Jehovah’s Witnesses to keep proclaiming at doors, also makes scriptures saying the grievously wicked are punished seem a lie, and it shows a major distrust in the Bible’s teaching that God, unlike imperfect humans, is right in His judgments and judges perfectly.