Sunday Sermons
Hell - The Original Hot Topic
British philosopher, Bertrand Russell said in his essay Why I Am Not A Christian that one of the reasons he was not a Christian, was because the founder of Christianity, Jesus Christ, believed in hell. As Wayne Jackson observed, “When I first read that observation, my inclination was this: ‘Well, at least Russell understood what Jesus believed about that matter’ which is considerably more than can be said for many religionists today who profess an acquaintance with Christian doctrine” (Christian Courier Penpoints, 3-6-2000). In recent years a number of prominent religious figures in the denominational world have rejected what Jesus taught about eternal punishment. Clark Pinnock, theology professor at McMaster Divinity College in Ontario, Canada, has renounced the idea of eternal and conscious suffering for the wicked. He argues that a being who would cause one to suffer endlessly partakes more of the nature of the devil than deity. John R.W. Stott and Philip E. Hughes, both Anglicans, contend that the rebellious will simply go out of existence ultimately. For years such cults as the Jehovah Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists have also argued the same position. Among members of churches of Christ, such ideas have also surfaced. Years ago, Edward Fudge presented the same view in the book entitled, The Fire That Consumes. In more recent times, F. LaGard Smith, in the book After Life, teaches that Christ will banish the wicked to hell, but “not with on-going torment”, rather “sooner or later”, those cast into hell will cease to exist. He equally contends that the dead are unconscious prior to the Judgment, that Luke 16:19-30 is a parable, and the condition of the lost and saved in Hades is identical.
Arguments
· Smith argues that the adjective eternal in the expression eternal punishment, speaks to the nature of the punishment, rather than its duration.
The exact same word is used of the eternal God (Romans 16:26), which affirms the Lord’s unending existence. I find it incredible that people cannot see that the nature of hell is that it is unending. The same expression is also used of heaven(Matthew 25:46). Who would seriously argue that the expression eternal life speaks not to the duration of heaven but only the nature of heaven? Is not one important aspect of the nature of heaven its unending duration?
· The Bible speaks of eternal destruction which means that the soul will be annihilated. “And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power” (2 Thessalonians 1:9). “And 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” (Matthew 10:28).
It is inaccurate to state that the terms destruction or destroy mean extinction or annihilation. First of all, the experts in the Greek language who translated the Bible into English translated the Greek terms apolesai and appollumi with the English words “perish”, “destroy”, “lose” or “lost”. Never did they give the translation “go out of existence”, “extinction” or “annihilation”. Jackson notes, “The term is employed of physical items that lose their usefulness. A wineskin that cracks open, and is not longer usable, is said to ‘perish’ (Luke 5:37). A sheep that wanders away from the safety of the fold is described as ‘lost’ (Luke 15:4,6). The wayward prodigal son was ‘lost’ to his father (Luke 15:15:24), though certainly not annihilated. Food that spoils is said to have ‘perished’ (John 6:27). When the disciples were fearful of drowning in a storm on the Sea of Galilee, they awoke the sleeping Lord, and exclaimed: ‘we are perishing’, employing a present tense form of apollumi (Matthew 8:25). Surely they were not saying: ‘Lord, we are in the process of going out of existence’” (Christian Courier, Questions, 8-29-2000). Years ago W.E. Vine accurately noted that the Greek word apollumi does not refer to extinction, but ruin, loss, not of being, but of well being. In addition, consider the contexts of Matthew 10:28 and 2 Thessalonians 1:9. In Matthew, Jesus says that God willdestroy both body and soul in hell, yet this refers to the resurrected body of the wicked (John 5:28-29). Why would God resurrect all the bodies of the wicked only to annihilate them? In 2 Thessalonians 1:9, the same people who are said to be involved in eternal destruction, are the same people who are said to be afflicted (1:6) and to pay the penalty (1:9), or suffer punishment (ASV). The penalty that is paid or the punishment that is suffered is eternal destruction. This demands that the destruction is ongoing and conscious, because non-existence does not involve suffering or payment.
· “Recently, Star Publications (Fort Worth, Texas) published a small work titled, Immortality: Only In Christ (2002). In this brief presentation, the author vigorously contends that the ‘second death’ mentioned in the book of Revelation constitutes the event ‘in which (wicked) man is annihilated’ (p. 44), though the author confesses that he does not know how long the annihilation process will take (p. 37)” (Christian Courier/Penpoints/10-27-2003).
Yet the concept of death never involves annihilation or extinction. Physical death is the separation of the spirit from the body(James 2:26), and the return of the body to the dust and the soul to God (Ecclesiastes 12:6-7). Spiritual death is the condition of being separated from God because of one’s sin (Isaiah 59:1-2). People who are spiritually dead still exist and they still have a soul. The Second Death is the final and ultimate separation from God. Hell is described as the Second Death because it follows physical death and is the final separation from the Lord (Matthew 7:23 “Depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness”). “Try substituting the term ‘annihilation’ for ‘death’ in the Revelation passages and see what sort of sense it makes, e.g., ‘the second annihilation’. The very expression represents an absurdity” (Ibid p. 2). After all, isn’t one annihilation enough? In addition, consider the context of a Second Death passage. In Revelation 20:14, the second death is described as the lake of fire, that is, hell. But carefully consider the wording of Revelation 20:10. The devil was also thrown into the same lake of fire, as well as the beast and the false prophet, and specifically and clearly, the Holy Spirit then says, “And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever”. Similar language is also found in Revelation 14:9-11.
Emotion
Men like Anglican John Stott find the concept of eternal, conscious torment emotionally intolerable (Judgment and Hell, pp. 314-315). Clark Pinnock argues that the annihilation theory is necessary to keep sensitive Christians from believing in universalism, that is, the idea that God is simply going to save everyone, because if given the choice between everlasting torment and universalism, large numbers of sensitive Christians will choose universalism (Fire, Then Nothing, p. 40). Notice how the writer calls Christians who do not believe what Jesus had to say about hell as being sensitive Christians. Does this mean that Jesus was insensitive because He described hell as being a place of continuing torment? (“In that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12). I object to this description because it is not true. Such people are notsensitive to what God has to say, neither are they sensitive to the true horror of sin and dying outside of Christ. Long ago the Holy Spirit said, “But to this one I will look, to him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word” (Isaiah 66:2). In addition, the above writer seems to be saying that Christians who do believe what the Bible says about hell are not being sensitive. Yet how much better to be sensitive to sin, and to God’s word?
I know that one of the major reasons why people reject the idea of conscious and unending punishment is not Scripture, because hell in Scripture is described in terms of being unending and painful (Mark 9:44 “where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched’; Luke 16:24 “for I am in agony in this flame”), but rather is pure and fallible human emotion (Proverbs 16:25). In fact, I am amazed that professed Christians completely dismiss the eternal and conscious aspect of hell on the basis of no evidence whatsoever. The claim is made that hell is non-existence, yet where is the Scripture that teaches such? Or that hell is punishment that sooner or later ends. Again, where does the Bible teach this idea? I am equally amazed by people who claim that the punishment ends but they are not sure how long it lasts. The reason they are not sure is because there is no Scripture that teaches it will end, in addition, why not just accept what Jesus said on the subject? How long does the punishment last? “And these will go away into eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:46).
More Tolerable Annihilation?
If hell is a place of extinction that all the lost undergo then what do these verses mean? “But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you” (Matthew 11:22-24). “And that servant, who knew his lord’s will, and made not ready, nor did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes; but he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes; shall be beaten with few” (Luke 12:47-48).
Is it fair?
To many people, the concept of eternal punishment is not consistent with their sense of justice. Yet Jackson notes, “Of course no one complains that ‘eternal’ happiness is unjust in the case of those who have served God only briefly on this earth”(Christian Courier/Archives/8-11-1999). What men and women need to understand is that they will not be judged on the basis of what they thought was fair. Everyone will be judged and rewarded or punished on the basis of what a holy and righteous God knows to be right.
· God sent His Son to die for our sins for the specific purpose that we could avoid the eternal punishment that our sins deserve (John 3:16 “should not perish”; Romans 5:9). “No man can complain about the injustice of hell in the face of the cross!” (Ibid p. 4).
· Consider the wording this the following verse, “What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?” (Romans 9:22) The verb preparedhere is in the middle voice and suggests that these individuals had “prepared themselves for destruction” (Arndt & Gingrich p. 419). This means that hell is a matter of personal determination. God clearly does not want anyone to end up suffering in hell (2 Peter 3:9), and He has gone far beyond the second mile in seeking to make every provision necessary so that humanity might avoid this fate. So realistically, no man or woman can fault God if they determine to ignore God’s attempts to save them. In fact, the Holy Spirit described it this way, “Since you repudiate it (the word of God), and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold we are turning to the Gentiles” (Acts 13:46). The inference is that in rejecting the gospel, the means of our salvation, men and women judge themselves to be worthy of eternal punishment. We see then that God does not send anyone to hell against his or her will. In this life, men and women either will choose heaven or hell as their destiny.
