Table 1 Subject Category:
Retribution

  • Christianity
  • Christian Science
  • Spiritualism
  • Jehovah's Witnesses
  • Mormonism
  • Eastern Mysticism
  • The Way International
  • Unity
  • Unification Church
    •

    BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY

    Retribution

    The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23).

    Those who sleep in the dust...shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame, and everlasting contempt (Daniel 12: 2).

    And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment (Hebrews 9:27).

    And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God....And the dead were judged out of those things...written in the books, according to their works (Revelation 20:12).

    The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven...in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel...; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).

    If thy foot offend thee, cut it off, it is better for thee to enter lame into life than, having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched (Mark 9:45).
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    CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

    Retribution

    Hell is "Mortal belief, error, lust, remorse, hatred, revenge, sin, sickness, death...that which worketh abomination or maketh a lie" (SH, 588:1-4).

    No final judgment awaits mortals, for the judgment day of wisdom comes hourly and continually (SH, 291 :28-29).

    Sin makes its own hell, and goodness its own heaven (SH, 196:18-19).

    Death is an illusion, the lie of life in matter, the unreal and untrue (SH, 584:9-10).

    The body cannot die, because matter has no life to surrender (SH, 426:30-31).

    Universal salvation rests on progression and probation (SH, 291: 12).

    If man should not progress after death, but should remain in error, he would be inevitably self-annihilated (Misc. Writings, p. 2).
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    SPIRITUALISM

    Retribution

    Hell does not exist and never will.

    All spirit people of wisdom, knowledge, and love know there is no hell and no devil.

    No resurrection--no judgment.

    When you believe in spiritual manifestations, you will feel far happier than you do now. You will not fear the threats of damnation and hell...such doctrine is wrong (Doyle, The New Revelation, 1918, p. 68).

    We do not believe in such places as Purgatory and Hell. Communicating spirits have merely graduated from this form of life into another. That life can be heaven or hell-like, just as each spirit chooses to make it, the same applies to our life here (SM, p. 183).
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    JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES

    Retribution

    The doctine of a burning hell where the wicked are tortured eternally after death cannot be true (LG, p. 99).

    A dead person is unconscious, inactive. The soul (entire being) itself is DEAD (MS, p. 143).

    The millennial judgment day (the 1,000-year judgment day) will take place after Armageddon (LG, p. 284-286).

    The final test will come by the loosing of Satan out of his restraint (at the end of the Millennium) (LG, p. 293).

    Those supporting Satan (at the end of Millennium) will, with the Devil himself, be cast into the "lake of fire and sulphur." They are drowned in everlasting destruction (annihilated) and for them there is no resurrection (LG, p. 270).

    All who reject the Kingdom message will be destroyed (LG, p. 190; YM, p. 341).
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    MORMONISM

    Retribution

    Most of the adult people who have lived since Adam (having rejected Christ and lived wickedly) will go to the "Telestial Kingdom" (MD, p. 778).

    Perdition is for Satan, and the Sons of Perdition, angels who rebelled with him. Also for men who commit the unpardonable sin (Talmage, DC, p. 410).

    "Endless punishment" is "God's punishment" and may endure for "one hour, one week or one year, or an age" (Morgan, The Plan of Salvation).

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    EASTERN MYSTICISM

    Retribution

    Heaven and hell are not accepted concepts.

    Karma, the "law of the deed," of sowing and reaping, is allied with Transmigration (Reincarnation) in defining the results of sin and rewards of good.

    Suffering (on earth) is the result of some wrongdoing in the past, one's own repayment of deeds.

    One who has attained union with God, or "God-consciousness," has reached the end of reincarnation. As the Buddha is reported to have said, "There is no rebirth for me."

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    THE WAY INTERNATIONAL

    Retribution

    The result of the one man's work (Adam's) was death; the result of the other was life (JC,p. 75).

    Man's freedom of will permits him to choose the seed he wants and thus determine his own destiny....One who accepts the seed of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has his seed eternally....When a person accepts the seed of the devil, he has it eternally....One seed means eternal life; the other, eternal damnation (WW, p. 70).

    Death for the believer is referred to as falling asleep because in sleep there is an awakening point. But for the unbeliever, the Christ rejector, the ungodly, their resurrection is temporary for they shall meet a second and final death (Wierwille, Are the Dead Alive Now?, p. 98).

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    UNITY

    Retribution

    Jesus of Nazareth played an important part in opening the way for every one of us into the Father's kingdom. However, that was not through His death on the cross, but through His overcoming death (UTC, p. 67).

    That which died upon the cross was the consciousness of all mortal beliefs that hold us in bondage--such as sin, evil, sickness, fleshly lusts, and death--which He overcame (UTC, pp. 68-69).

    The error lies in the belief that He was the only begotten Son of God, and that He overcame for us, and that by simply believing on Him we are saved (UTC, pp. 68-69).

    Paul is responsible for...this throwing of the whole burden upon the blood of Jesus--that He was the great once-for-all bloody sacrifice, and that no other would ever be necessary. Jesus said..."Follow me." He meant; do as I do. I have overcome, now by following in my footsteps you shall overcome (UTC, p. 69).

    Being born again or from above is...the establishment of that which had always existed as the perfect man idea of Divine Mind (SB, p. 25)

    To "know thyself" is to know that you are I AM and not flesh and blood. It is this I AM that is born of the flesh and born of Spirit (SB, p. 206).

    The eternal life taught and demonstrated by Jesus is not gained by dying, but by purifying the body until it becomes the undying habitation of the soul (UM, July 1922).

    We believe the repeated incarnations of man to be a merciful provision of our loving Father to the end that all may have opportunity to obtain immortality through regeneration as did Jesus (Unity Statement of Faith, art. 22).

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    UNIFICATION CHURCH

    Retribution

    The spirit men who left their missions unaccomplished on earth descend to earthly men...and cooperate with them for the accomplishment of the will....In this case, the earthly man is the "second coming" of the spirit man...John the Baptist...had to accomplish the mission Elijah had left unaccomplished (DP, pp. 187-88).
    Taken from: The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Error 2. Compiled by Steven Cory. Copyright 1986, Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. Moody Press. Used by permission.

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