What The Hell Am I Saved From? What I Believe About Hell & Why (Pt 7)

It seems odd to have a section that only highlights the benefits of why one should believe in the eternality of hell. It’s crazy to think there are pluses to this immense minus. But there are many.

First I would put this doctrine in my category of  “Devastatingly Beautiful.” This is where I put the doctrines that are so dangerous and devastating but also afford and allow for such worship as cannot be brought by any song I’ve heard or sung.

The eternality of hell is devastating because real people go to a real hell – forever. There are no second chances after death. In fact this life we live has second chances every second. After death there is one place for those who have spurned God’s call and shunned his righteousness and aimed to live their own life without God. God mercifully gives them what they desire – an eternity without his closeness. We cannot come to this dry-eyed or bushy-tailed. This ought to take the wind out of our sails and crush us on the rocks of devastation. People will die and they will suffer forever…

Think about that, people you know will die and they will suffer endlessly. Think about their screams; try to imagine their pain. Now think there’s a way out of that torment – that terrible suffering – a way has been made to release you and them from your and their just damnation and his name is Jesus! He bore that incomprehensible wrath in your place for your sins! Do you love your friends? Of course, now tell them to be saved, redeemed by Jesus! At the heart of the arguments on the limitations of hell is a dangerous plot to lose the urgency of missions. Our dying world must be saved from the just torment of eternity. And only God can save them from his own wrath through Jesus’ atoning death.

Now think about the beauty of salvation! See the storm clouds of God’s divinely just wrath poured out completely on Jesus – you see the only way that Jesus could bear the eternal wrath of God is because he himself is a part of the eternal Being. The only possible way for God’s entire eternal wrath to be cleared from your name is if Jesus being fully God and full man stood and took that wrath for you – it’s the doctrine of propitiation - because only an eternaly Being could bear an eternity of wrath in on the cross.

We cannot lull our friends or family into a false sense of security by allow them to think hell is ending or that it is not going to be terrible. To allow them to think such things would be like leading them there yourself. Spurgeon said in Lectures to My Students something that has stuck with me for years essentially it is this: Do not be a blind pastor leading you people blindly to hell; an unredeemed pastor is like a blind man making claims about beautiful paintings or a deaf man telling the world of Mozart, he cannot tell the world of what he does not know. Therefore make sure you know and believe the gospel lest you lead your congregation to hell and be greeted there by their screams of torment, “You lead us here!” This will be the screams of those we love if we do not tell them urgency and dangerousness of hell and the beauty of the salvation of Jesus.

Ask yourselves what makes missions seem more urgent hell that is ending or hell that is eternal? Ask yourself what makes God’s hatred against sin more perfect hell that is ending or hell that is eternal? Ask yourself what makes God’s salvation more inescapably beautiful hell that is ending or hell that is eternal? Ask yourself what makes God’s glory so vast as to truly show us that what we know of God is limited and finite hell that is ending or hell that is eternal? Finally ask yourself what shows God’s way to be far higher than our ways, hell that is ending or hell that is eternal?

What The Hell Am I Saved From? What I Believe About Hell & Why (Pt 6)

Here I want to propose the arguments for the eternality of hell in a positive light.

First it is biblical (this should be enough):

Matt 25:30-41, 46 see also Isa 66:4

Mark 9:43, 48

Luke 16:22-24, 28

Rev 14:9-11; 19:3; 20:10-15…

Second it’s reasonable:

If God is an eternal being and we have sinned against that Eternal Being than it stands to reason that the just punishment for such a grievance is an eternal punishment. We however are guilty of more than one sin, indeed we are sinners are through and through and those myriad of sins are all against the eternal God (Ps 51) and therefore are worthy of a myriad of eternal punishment. There is indeed justice for God in the eternal damnation of sinners.

If God commands that we as his creation do not murder, that we do not snuff out life in this reality, then how can God, who created the law, not be subject to his own law and utterly destroy – annihilate, murder in completeness of the word – people? It would seem that in so acting God must be unjust and disobey his own decreed command and therefore not be perfect. In other words it would mean that God is in fact not God and therefore not worthy of glory, honor, praise, and eternal dominion.

Third it’s traditional orthodoxy:

I’ll be the first to tell you that just because something is traditional doesn’t mean it should be believed, you all know I’m a huge fan of the Reformation. But when it comes to orthodoxy these are areas, which must be believed in order to have the gospel in its full potency. It is a good practice to ask, “If this is doctrine is different or changed in any way does it change the gospel? And if so how?” If the gospel is changed than the new doctrine or changed doctrine should not be believed. Here, if hell is ending we loose much of the potency of the powerful redemptive work of Jesus. Rather than saving us for all times from the wrath of God on sin, he only saves from the wrath of God until the end of hell then after that… well that’s part of the question, what does happen to those in heaven after hell is over? Is Jesus’ death still effective? What happens to justification? What happens to redemption? What happens to salvation after hell has ended? Are we still the redeemed and if so what are we the redeemed from? Like the title of this post says, what the hell am I saved from?

On this note it is good to look at those who have believed this same doctrine, has history vindicated their names against those who have been proponents for other doctrines, names like St. Augustine, John Calvin, Martin Luther, Charles Spurgeon, Peter and Paul. It is good to be in good company when believing certain difficult doctrines. Here, if one were to believe that hell has an end they would be in the company of Seventh Day Adventist or Jehovah’s Witnesses, which are both commonly, referred to as cults.

In the last post I want to point out what believing in the eternality of hell does for one’s Christian faith.

What The Hell Am I Saved From? What I Believe About Hell & Why (Pt. 1)

Last week I wrote a couple posts about an interesting topic that I apparently jumped fully into, that is the topic of annihilationism. This is the idea that hell will end for those condemned there after a time – that rather than suffering for eternity those damned will be annihilated, that they’ll cease to be.

It seems there are four parts to the annihilationist’s argument (of the more than one hundred comments on my facebook post you’d think there are at least four hundred arguments for it and just as many against it), these are:

1) The biblical references for the ‘destruction’ of the wicked,
2) The inconsistency of an eternal hell with the love of God,
3) The injustice or unfairness of the disparity between sins committed in this life and the punishment of eternal torment, and
4) That allowing evil to continue in hell would mess with the perfection of the universe God will create after the Judgment Day. (Order taken from Wayne Grudem)

Over the next series of posts (for the record there are seven of these) I hope to respond to this doctrine, not only to respond to it but also to make clear both the biblical stance as well as my stance on this topic of the eternality of hell.

           

            However before we begin to look more deeply at this topic I want to make one thing absolutely crystal clear and this one thing should be at the front of our minds whenever we are discussing or thinking about the topic of hell, namely that we are thinking about the outcome for millions of real people.

            Hell is real, whether one believes in annihilationism or eternal hell, it’s still real and will still be awful and real people will go there. Friends, family, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, children will inhabit this terrible place where God justly pours out his wrath on those who are not saved by the blood of Jesus. This MUST be at the forefront of our minds as we think about this topic. The wrath of God is real, and it will be – and is - unimaginable.