The
film is structured in three "kingdoms": Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven.
ON HELL
A diplomat... is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such
a way that you actually look forward to the trip.
--Caskie Stinnett, Out of the Red (1960)
Maybe
this world is another planet's hell.
--Aldous Huxley (1894 - 1963)
It is easy to go down into Hell; night and day, the gates of dark
Death stand wide; but to climb back again, to retrace one's steps
to the upper air - there's the rub, the task.
--Virgil (70 BC - 19 BC), Aeneid
Each of us bears his own Hell.
--Virgil (70 BC - 19 BC), Aeneid
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
--Dante Alighieri (1265–1321)
Hell is truth seen too late.
--Tryon Edwards (1809–1894)
What is hell? The suffering that comes from the consciousness that
one is no longer able to love.
--Fyodor Mikhaylovich Dostoyevski (1821–1881)
ON
HEAVEN and HELL
God will never send anybody to hell. If man goes to hell, he goes
by his own free choice. Hell was created for the devil and his angels,
not for man. God never meant that man should go there.
--Billy Graham (1918– )
Rev. 21:1-27 (Message Bible)
I saw Heaven and earth new-created. Gone the first Heaven, gone the
first earth, gone the sea.
I saw Holy Jerusalem, new-created, descending resplendent out of Heaven,
as ready for God as a bride for her husband.
I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: "Look! Look! God has
moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They're
his people, he's their God. He'll wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all
the first order of things gone." The Enthroned continued, "Look!
I'm making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable
and accurate."
Then he said, "It's happened. I'm A to Z. I'm the Beginning,
I'm the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty.
Conquerors inherit all this. I'll be God to them, they'll be sons
and daughters to me. But for the rest—the feckless and faithless,
degenerates and murderers, sex peddlers and sorcerers, idolaters and
all liars—for them it's Lake Fire and Brimstone. Second death!"
One of the Seven Angels who had carried the bowls filled with the
seven final disasters spoke to me: "Come here. I'll show you
the Bride, the Wife of the Lamb." He took me away in the Spirit
to an enormous, high mountain and showed me Holy Jerusalem descending
out of Heaven from God, resplendent in the bright glory of God.
The City shimmered like a precious gem, light-filled, pulsing light.
She had a wall majestic and high with twelve gates. At each gate stood
an Angel, and on the gates were inscribed the names of the Twelve
Tribes of the sons of Israel: three gates on the east, three gates
on the north, three gates on the south, three gates on the west. The
wall was set on twelve foundations, the names of the Twelve Apostles
of the Lamb inscribed on them.
The Angel speaking with me had a gold measuring stick to measure the
City, its gates, and its wall. The City was laid out in a perfect
square. He measured the City with the measuring stick: twelve thousand
stadia, its length, width, and height all equal. Using the standard
measure, the Angel measured the thickness of its wall: 144 cubits.
The wall was jasper, the color of Glory, and the City was pure gold,
translucent as glass. The foundations of the City walls were garnished
with every precious gem imaginable: the first foundation jasper, the
second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx,
the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the
ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth
amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate a single
pearl.
The main street of the City was pure gold, translucent as glass. But
there was no sign of a Temple, for the Lord God—the Sovereign-Strong—and
the Lamb are the Temple. The City doesn't need sun or moon for light.
God's Glory is its light, the Lamb its lamp! The nations will walk
in its light and earth's kings bring in their splendor. Its gates
will never be shut by day, and there won't be any night. They'll bring
the glory and honor of the nations into the City. Nothing dirty or
defiled will get into the City, and no one who defiles or deceives.
Only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life will
get in.
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