Hell is
a Place of Teaching and Discipline James E. Talmage
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Hell is no place to which a vindictive judge sends prisoners to suffer
and to be punished principally for his glory; but it is a place prepared
for the teaching, the disciplining of those who failed to learn here
upon the earth what they would have learned. True, we read of everlasting
punishment, unending suffering, eternal damnation. That is a direful
expression; but in his mercy the Lord has made plain what those words
mean. "Eternal punishment" he says, "is God's punishment,
for he is eternal"; and that condition or state or possibility
will ever exist for the sinner who deserves and really needs such condemnation;
but this does not mean that the individual sufferer or sinner is to
be eternally and everlastingly made to endure and suffer. No man will
be kept in hell longer than is necessary to bring him to a fitness for
something better. When he reaches that stage, the prison doors will
open and there will be rejoicing among the hosts who welcome him into
a better state. The Lord has not abated in the least what he has said
in earlier dispensations concerning the operation of this law and his
gospel, but he has made clear unto us his goodness and mercy through
it all, for it is his glory and his work to bring about the immortality
and eternal life of man. (James E. Talmage, CR, April 1930, p. 97) |
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