Father Peter Heers was recently on a podcast with David Patrick Harry discussing end time prophecies made by various Orthodox Church Fathers. During this discussion he declared that God did not create hell.
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47:21 People will freely choose the Antichrist. They freely choose to go to hell too. Nobody's in hell that doesn't want to be in hell.
Right
Nobody's sent by by God to Hell. God didn't create hell.
Nobody is sent by God to hell and God did not create hell? Really? Let us hear the words of Jesus Christ.
Matthew 25:21 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
Jesus says the everlasting fire, that is hell, was prepared for the devil and his angels. He also says the Kingdom was prepared for the saints.
Matthew 25:34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
Was the Kingdom created by God? Surely Fr. Heers would say yes. So what is his problem with God creating hell? Does Hell exist? Yes. Is there anything that exists that was not created by God? No. Therefore God created hell.
Everything that ever was or is or will be is created by God, including hell (Colossians 1:16). John 1:3 says, “All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.” God alone has the power to cast someone into hell (Luke 12:5). Jesus holds the keys of death and Hades (Revelation 1:18).Jesus said that hell was “prepared” for Satan and the demons (Matthew 25:41). It is a just punishment for the wicked one. Hell, or the lake of fire, will also be the destination for those who reject Christ (2 Peter 2:4–9).
While it may be true in a sense that we choose hell by our actions it is also true God weighs those actions and casts all those not found in the Book of Life into hell along with the devil.
Revelation 20:15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Did they cast themselves? Did they run and jump into the Lake of Fire? No. God sent them there. He cast them into the flames. Therefore God sends people to hell.
The problem here is that despite 2,000 years of teaching the Orthodox Church, for some reason, does not have a coherent eschatology. In fact their eschatology is completely divorced from the Scriptures and wholly reliant on what men like St. Issac the Syrian have to say. Thus there are "hopeful" universalists, there are believers in aerial toll-houses, and there are some who think hell is simply experiencing God's presence negatively alongside the saints who experience it positively. That final view is known as the River of Fire and it's a good bet Fr. Peter Heers believes that heresy.
Here is Orthodox writer Vladimir Moss refuting that abominable teaching which essentially denies that God is just and God punishes.
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| https://www.orthodoxchristianbooks.com/articles/837/-river-fire-revisited/ |
Sadly too many modern Orthodox, including David Patrick Harry, Jay Dyer, and Father Seraphim Rose, have been hoodwinked by this heresy and other eschatological heresies including aerial toll-houses.
