What The Hell Am I Saved From? What I Believe About Hell & Why (Pt 4)

In the first post I listed the main arguments of annihilationism as this:

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)

In this post I hope to offer a rebuttal to these arguments. Mind you this debate has been going on for years and I do not expect to change their minds in this one post, in fact I fully expect more arguments will come to show. (Some good resource to read are: Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology page 1146 about Hell, J.I. Packer Knowing God chapter on The Wrath of God, James Boice The Foundations of the Christian Faith chapter on The Wrath of God, Jonathan Edwards sermons Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners, Of Eternal Punishment and many others.) Many of my arguments here are taken from Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology.

First the biblical references for the ‘destruction’ of the wicked. References like Phil. 3:19; I Thess 5:3; II Thess 1:9; II Peter 3:7. “In response it must be said that the passages of destruction do not necessarily imply the cessation of existence.” (Hold on to your hats this part is a little detailed and I’m no Greek scholar.)

In Phil. 3:19 and II Peter 3:7, “‘destruction’ is apoleia which is the same as in Matt 26:8 to speak of ‘waste’ of the ointment. Now the ointment did not cease to be, to exist; it was very evident on Jesus’ head. But was ‘destroyed’ in the sense it no longer was able to be used on someone else or sold.” This destruction is the type seen in these verses, not imply annihilation but the simplicity of unable to be redeemed. Those who are in hell are unredeemable; they did not believe the gospel of Jesus Christ and are bearing the just eternal punishment of their sins.

In I Thess 5:3 and II Thess 1:9, “’destruction’ is olethros, used also in I Cor 5:5 of delivering a man to Satan (putting him out of the church) for destruction of the flesh – but his flesh did not certainly cease to be when he was put out of the church…” So destruction is once again not seen as ceasing to exist it is seen as being done away with in a permanent since.

Verses about the eternality of hell:

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

I would highly recommend you look these verses up, especially the ones in Revelation, which say things like “forever and ever.” All the verses are linked for your viewing ease.

Historically Interesting

The other day (the one I wrote my last post on) I stumbled onto an issue, which seems to be a great debating point inside the church-world. My wife and I have done quite a bit of talking about that particular issue (if you want to read about it go here). The comments to my Facebook link are near 100 and are continuing right now (as I write… literally I just saw another notification about it).

This is a world I’m quite familiar with, the one where topics are hotly debated and heretics jump on the chance to have a fight with orthodox Christians (Orthodoxy simply means basic Christian doctrine, the reason orthodox doctrine are basic Christian doctrines are because without them – or even without one of them – we loose the gospel. Things like the inerrancy and authority of Scripture, God as Creator, the virgin birth, heaven and hell’s eternality, the dual nature of Jesus that he is both fully God and fully man among others). But I ignorantly forgot that not all Christians inhabit this world of debates about doctrines.

We don’t all sit around late at night on Facebook or creating websites to advocate for our orthodox or non-orthodox doctrines. We don’t all look at Hebrew and Greek and think, “Ah-ha my point is proven!” only to have the same person comment back for the millionth time. And you might be thinking that is a realm for pastors and kids that still live with mom and don't have jobs, or men in white towers (funny how those last two are in the same sentence).

Yet there is a small child-like faith out there that must be shielded from the wolves of false doctrine by pastors and the kids who love good solid biblical orthodox doctrine and men in white towers. And solid doctrine does not conform to what we want – even, or rather, especially if it hurts - that’s why it’s a shield. It’s cold and is not nice, but what it teaches us is warm and wonderful.

Doctrine teaches us about God, about his character and glory. Good doctrine will always make God scary and glorious, holy and beautiful, loving and vengeful, just and merciful, gracious and tender; it will always end in God getting glory and us getting grace (eternity with him) or exactly what we deserve (eternity in his wrath).

It is always under attack and always being slandered as, “traditionalism”, or “conservatism”, or “the old way of thinking”, or my favorite, “unbiblical.” There’s another swing in history happening, it happened the last time hell was being used to slander God.

Last time is called the Reformation, when the Catholic Church said hell would end if only you paid enough to the Pope; now it is the old re-hashed theory of annihilationism that is coming to town to attack the side of God’s character that is his infinite eternal just wrath on sin.

I’ll end it here for now, but it will be very interesting – I think – to see what becomes of the debate between the orthodox view of hell (the one the Bible clearly teaches) and that of annihilationism.