Did you know that under Israel's laws there were no jails. No punishment under God's law incurred incarceration or torture....so there is your first problem. That was never part of God's justice system.
Those who committed capital crimes in Israel (incurring the highest penalty under the Law) were put to death....they were not put in prison or tortured, because that is not the kind of God Jehovah is.
Jeremiah 7:31...
"And they go on building the high place of Topheth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire—which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind." (NRSV)
Israel at times strayed off the path of true worship and at one point adopted the practice of offering their children to a false god by sacrificing them in a fire.......
Now, if God would not condone that kind of conduct among his own people, why on earth would he do that to anyone himself after their death?
You can see what it says there...."the
second death"...where do you see torture? Death is the cessation of life...the very opposite. So everlasting life in the Bible is contrasted with everlasting death for the wicked. It is indeed a punishment that lasts forever.
Besides....in order to torture someone forever, they would have to be alive forever in order to suffer or to feel torment or pain......yet, the Bible says that only the righteous are promised everlasting life.
The 'second death' is different to the 'first' death because there is no hope of a resurrection. It is annihilation pure and simple. Can you tell me how eternal suffering in hell is a product of God's justice? Was our sinful condition our fault? Would that sinful condition mean that we are unforgivable if we broke God's commands? How did Israel make amends to God for their sin? Wasn't it through their sacrifices? There was no such thing as "hell" (eternal suffering in an afterlife) ever taught in Jewish scripture. The word translated "hell" in the Bible is from the Hebrew "sheol" or the Greek "hades", which according to Solomon is a place of rest, not a place of torture.
Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10 reveals that "sheol" is merely "the grave".....the place where all dead people go.
"For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for their remembrance is forgotten.......Whatever your hand attains to do [as long as you are] with your strength, do; for there is neither deed nor reckoning, neither knowledge nor wisdom in the grave, where you are going." (From the Jewish Tanakh)
OK....let's explore that question....
If the dead are in an unconscious state in their grave, what did Jesus promise them?
John 5:28-29...
"Do not marvel at this; for an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, 29 and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment."
Do you see that both the righteous and the unrighteous are called from the same place as Paul said in Acts 24:15. The ones you don't see there are the incorrigibly wicked. Their death is permanent....there is no resurrection for them. "The lake of fire" is a symbolic receptacle for all that God abhors....'death and hades' are thrown into this lake too, to destroy them...(Revelation 20:13) so how can it be a literal place or torture?
I think we need a Bible that differentiates between "hades", "gehenna", "tartarus" and "the lake of fire"....these all mean different things, as a careful study of scripture shows......
Again, lets explore what Jesus actually said....are you familiar with the parable of the "wheat and the weeds"? (Matthew 13:36-42) Jesus warned that a counterfeit form of Christianity would be sown among the wheat by the devil, or IOW, there would be two kinds of Christianity in the world, growing together....one true and the other false. Why did Jesus use "weeds" to describe what the devil sowed? As any gardener will tell you, weeds grow so much more easily and quickly than plants do. What you saw in the past 2,000 years is people attaching themselves to the weeds and being convinced of the devil's first lie..."you surely will not die".....he promotes the idea of life after death in a heaven of bliss, or an eternal fiery hell.....neither of which are true, but that the majority believe. There is no immortal soul to survive death...the devil lied, but God did not. What did he tell Adam? (Genesis 3:19) All Adam knew was that death meant a return to the dust...nothing more.
What does this mean? Obviously there will be "many" who think that they are on the right road.....but they are mistaken. What is preventing them from entering the narrow door?
So here we have a "narrow" gate and a "broad" gate where all must choose to enter the road to their desired destination. There are only two choices. One leads to "life" and the other leads to..."destruction"....not eternal torment, but
destruction....if you look it up in a Bible concordance like Strongs, the word is "
apōleia"....and it means "destroying, utter destruction". (Romans 9:22; 2 Peter 3:7)
Jesus also used a similar word "
apollymi" (meaning "to destroy...."to put out of the way entirely, abolish, put an end to ruin....render useless.... to kill") in Matthew 10:28...
"Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. [Gehenna]"
So it seems that destruction means exactly what it says.....souls can be destroyed. (Ezekiel 18:4)
Now, who would take a road knowing full well that it is literally, a "dead" end? IMV this is a choice between genuinely serving the Lord and just appearing to serve him. The cramped road is cramped for a reason...it has restrictions and it is narrow because there is no room to wander. This is the Christianity that Jesus said we must choose....to please our heavenly Father and arrive safely at our destination.....but the broad road is free and easy, there are no restrictions and everyone is happy doing their own thing and perhaps calling it "Christianity", but it was never anything close.
This is confirmed again by Jesus himself....
Matthew 7:21:23...
"Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’
Can you imagine those who thought that for their whole lives,that they were Christians in good standing according to their church's teachings.....even prophesying, performing miracles and casting out demons, all "in Jesus' name"....and yet he says that to them....What does NEVER mean? What road were they really on? Did they know it?