by jimwalton » Tue Apr 25, 2017 10:11 am
We find out from the Bible that God's mercy and forgiveness is unlimited for humans who repent, but that his mercy and forgiveness do not extend to the unrepentant. If you are interested in what the Bible teaches, that's it. If you want to speculate about how God's mercy and forgiveness extend into the spiritual realm, we are into such blind speculation that it's all guesswork and therefore nothing more than musing.
God's treatment of the Devil has nothing to do with His mercy and forgiveness towards humans. That's like speculating, "If you like all fruits, what would happen if we one day invented a new fruit that's not really a fruit?" It involves so much speculation in a completely different and unknown topic that a discussion takes us nowhere.
As far as for human beings, "where is the line drawn?" is a question I can answer. For human beings, the only sin that cannot be forgiven is the sin of continuing rebellion against God (habitual and unrepentant blasphemy). As far as Adolf Hitler, the poster child for evil, if he had truly repented before the end of his life and had a soul change, he would have been forgiven. But since we know there are degrees of reward in heaven, we can be assured that he would still be held accountable for the evil he had done (2 Cor. 5.10 et al.), and his reward would be greatly mitigated by his evil acts. He would still have been justified and forgiven, fundamentally, but that wouldn't compromise him being treated with justice (Rev. 20.12).
We find out from the Bible that God's mercy and forgiveness is unlimited for humans who repent, but that his mercy and forgiveness do not extend to the unrepentant. If you are interested in what the Bible teaches, that's it. If you want to speculate about how God's mercy and forgiveness extend into the spiritual realm, we are into such blind speculation that it's all guesswork and therefore nothing more than musing.
God's treatment of the Devil has nothing to do with His mercy and forgiveness towards humans. That's like speculating, "If you like all fruits, what would happen if we one day invented a new fruit that's not really a fruit?" It involves so much speculation in a completely different and unknown topic that a discussion takes us nowhere.
As far as for human beings, "where is the line drawn?" is a question I can answer. For human beings, the only sin that cannot be forgiven is the sin of continuing rebellion against God (habitual and unrepentant blasphemy). As far as Adolf Hitler, the poster child for evil, if he had truly repented before the end of his life and had a soul change, he would have been forgiven. But since we know there are degrees of reward in heaven, we can be assured that he would still be held accountable for the evil he had done (2 Cor. 5.10 et al.), and his reward would be greatly mitigated by his evil acts. He would still have been justified and forgiven, fundamentally, but that wouldn't compromise him being treated with justice (Rev. 20.12).