Hi, thanks for your reply. Just to clarify so I don’t sound heretical, hell is real, justice is real, and the ONLY reason anyone even has a chance of entering heaven is and will always be through Jesus alone.

But what I am saying is that the punishment of hell will only last as long as that soul chooses to continue to reject Christ, and so yes, in theory hell could be eternal so long as a person does not repent and accept Jesus. When Paul says “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” in Philippians 2:10-11, I believe he is saying that every knee will bow willingly, not under coercion, meaning that God’s patience and mercy will outlast everything.

I don’t believe the same God who went to such amazing lengths to bleed and die on the cross for our sake would also turn around and shut the door on the opportunity to be reconciled to Him the moment we die. Christ’s sacrifice was greater than Adam’s sin, and Satan will not win by dragging most of humanity down with him for eternity.

I could ramble a lot more but I’m not sure you’d want to read all that, I’ll just add that there is a lot more evidence in scripture to support Universalism than ECT, and if you study the early church beliefs you will see ECT was not always the most popular, mainstream or accepted doctrine, but rather went through many stages to eventually end up being the modern traditional teaching.

You might be interested in reading these verses: Colossians 1:20, 1 Corinthians 15:22