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 5)

In the last post we looked at the first argument for the biblical texts ‘supporting’ annihilationism. In this post we’ll look at the last three.

The second is that of the inconsistency that an eternal hell is to the love of God. That for God to be truly loving then he would not damn any person to an eternity in hell. However the same problem arises for the annihilationists. In other words this is really a non-argument. It would be unloving for God to damn anyone to hell forever, but it would be loving for God to damn anyone to hell for a set time in such a way so as to annihilate them. Do you see? On one hand it’s unloving to damn and on the other hand it’s loving to damn is essentially the argument. (There is also another type of annihilationism, called annihilationism proper or immediate annihilationism, that is that upon death those unsaved completely cease to be and do not enter hell at all. But this cannot properly be called punishment. Therefore it’s not right because there would be no ultimate justice in the universe.)

Third is the inconsistency between the punishment and the grievance, the sin committed. “The argument that eternal punishment is unfair wrongly assumes that we know the extent of the evil done when sinners rebel against God. (Grudem)”, “Sin against the Creator is heinous to a degree utterly beyond our sin warped imaginations to conceive of….Who would have the temerity to suggest to God what the punishment … should be. (Kingdon).”

Along this point it should be asked of the annihilationist if once a person has entered hell and has served its ‘time’ is it then justified to be annihilated? If the sin that was committed by this person is now dealt with in their ‘time’ in hell, then why not let that person go to heaven? What is the reason or point of annihilationism whatsoever if that person’s sins have been dealt with fully in hell? (Grudem)

Fourth, that allowing evil to persist would be a corruption in God’s perfect universe he creates after the Judgment Day. That hell exists in eternity does not detract from the perfections of God’s universe, in fact it enhances it. It forces us to realize that God has triumphed over sin perfectly and, as Edwards said, to the uttermost revealing the glory of his justice and the perfection of his wrath. That for all time his people will behold God’s triumph over all evil.

On a side note before I end this particular post Grudem brought up an interesting thing, one which I’ll post here as a warning – a shot across the bow, if you will – of where, the dangers of fighting against the eternality of hell could lead. “Because the doctrine of eternal conscious punishment is so foreign to the thought patterns of our culture, and, on a deeper level, to our instinctive and God-given sense of love and desire for redemption for ever human being created in God’s image, this doctrine is emotionally one of the most difficult doctrines for Christians to affirm today. It also tends to be one of the first doctrines given up by those who are moving away from commitment to the Bible as absolutely truthful in all that it affirms…”

We must believe that eternal punishment is true and just even though it does hurt us to believe that there is a place that offers eternal punishment. Even though the prospects of people going there is devastating. This doctrine gives literal fire to our message of redemption. 

What The Hell Am I Saved From? What I Believe About Hell and Why (Pt 3)

Now let’s get the brunt of what these posts are about. We’ve seen that the wrath of God no matter where one stands on the spectrum of hell, that God’s wrath is indeed terrible and should cause us to fear Him. We’ve also seen that God’s wrath isn’t mixed with imperfections like our, that it is a perfect wrath.

So how does this wrath play out in hell? It’s real, hell. We need to know that above all else hell is a real place and real people go there (remember, keep that at the forefront of your mind).

Edwards makes a good case in the last post that if a little of God’s wrath is intolerable what must it be to experience God’s wrath to the uttermost? But what is the term on God’s wrath, is there a limit, does it end?

No, God’s wrath against sin does not end. Biblically God’s wrath against sin does not end (This should be enough). Logically God’s wrath against sin does not end. Temporally God’s wrath against sin does not end. In terms of glory God’s wrath against sin does not end. In terms of perfection God’s wrath does not end.

I want to present this in two ways, first in terms of a rebuttal to the four main arguments for annihilationism (a necessarily negative light) and second in terms of why one must believe that hell is unending (a necessarily positive light).

Problems with “Annihilationism”

A while ago I was tagged in a note on Facebook about why we should give annihilationism (the teaching that hell is ending) a chance. The essay used was written by well-known Open-Theist Greg Boyd (Here 'tis), who tries to support his position biblically for an ending hell.

However there are several things (there's accutally more than 'several' but for the sake of time and a blog post this only has 6), which must be dealt with when considering the ending of hell. These problems are listed below:

1) Misunderstanding of the word "immortal"

• Immortal means having no beginning AND no end. As created souls we distinctly have a beginning and therefore it is right to assume only God is immortal (1 Tim 6:16). We are just eternal beings, i.e. souls.

2) Time-centric view of eternity

• God being outside of space and time as its Creator is therefore not subject to time and by placing a capstone of time on the eternality of God and/or his creation outside of time is to limit the understanding and depth of eternity into base numbers. In other words you attempt to confound the wisdom of God by using his creation.

3) To say, "The wicked are “destroyed forever” (Ps 92:7), but they are not forever being destroyed." Is to miss the point of language and words entirely. 

• In the punishment of unbelievers in 2 Thessalonians 1, “They,” means those, “… who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thess 1:8)” Inside this punishment is the constant continual action of, “eternal destruction” (2 Thess 1:9). Which means it goes on for eternity (true story). This is not unclear; this is not guesswork on the meaning of words. ‘Eternal’ means eternal (with a beginning but without an end) and ‘destruction’ means frick-this-is-hell. In modern vernacular, it’ll freaking suck. So arguing the semantics of the ‘end of hell’ is about as illogical as wondering if McDonalds is healthy for every meal. 

4) If hell is ending then so to must heaven be ending.

•             If hell is ending so to must heaven be ending. If the destruction of the wicked is ending then so to must the redemption of the saved. However we talk and read of salvation being a constant thing, “We were redeemed (Ephesians 2:1-10), we are being redeemed (1 Cor 15:1-2), and we are not yet fully redeemed (Matt 24:13).” If redemption were to have an end then in the midst of eternity would come a time when our salvation is no longer effective and the casting out of heaven would come for Christians and then to be annihilated, but this is simply not taught in Scripture.

5) If hell is ending then why was Jesus' death necessary?

•             If hell is ending then what is Jesus saving us from, annihilation? No. Jesus isn’t saving us from annihilation; he is saving us from the just wrath of God stored up for our personal sins. Therefore when God saves us he is saving individual people. Annihilationism takes the personal love of God and makes it an abstract teaching. God loves – in annihilationism – humanity, not individual people, but the whole humanity, and therefore when Jesus dies on the cross in the annihilationist’s view he is dying, not for you specifically or for me specifically, but he is dying for all in the abstract sense. But God’s love is personal and as such must move our hearts away from annihilationism
•             Still more on this point is the simple fact that annihilationism takes the gospel and tries to bury it in the dirt. What is the point of Jesus attempting at saving souls when the unsaved will just cease to be? Why not let them go away and be full in the Trinity as God once was before creation?
•             Annihilationism attempts at making God dependent on man, on his creation. Rather than God loving man so much that he gave his Son to give us Himself and show us his unfiltered glory, annihilationism would say that God’s love hinges on man, not God.

6) If hell was ending then why do we worry about evangelization?

•             Lastly, if annihilationism is true then why worry about telling people about Jesus? What’s the hurry in telling others about Jesus’ redemptive work if they’ll just cease to be and not endure eternal suffering?

Hell is eternal and will be endured forever and therefore Jesus’ redemption is of eternal significance and damnation is of eternal potency. Thus evangelization is of eternal weightiness and who we worship is of eternal importance. Either we worship God to our joy or we worship self (especially in annihilationism) to our destruction – God is the centerpiece of all eternity (because he defines eternity) and as such we must have eternal worship and eternal damnation.

Thoughts Again

1) There's two of these 'thoughts' deals this week. Am I lazy? ... So.

2) Check out 'The What Nots' page to see what's on its way.

3) I'm a sinner, Jesus is my Savior.

4) Tonight I will see Brave. #determined

5) After two months of planning and five years of writing, I'm ready.

6) Editors. Yes, plural.

7) Kansas, hot as hell and cool as... Well... Kansas, hot as hell.

8) It's going to be in the low 90's on Monday. I'mma need a jacket.

9) When I wear a hat I feel 12x cooler than I look.

10) Communication Masters or Theology Masters? I suppose that's a question.

Friday Thoughts

1) Friday! I'm sleepy.

2) My friends from India are in town!

3) The book of Romans. Whoa.

4) Restarted Calvin's Institues of the Christian Religion, it's basically FREAKIN' AMAZING.

5) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Dear Sirus Black, you're my favorite.

6) 'Member that one time we lived in hell, I mean, Kansas?

7) Hung out in a dang cool church on Wednesday. (Look at da pichure)

8) I wanna see Brave. If you judge me I'll do something.

9) If you're not doing anything tomorrow night, be here.

10) Christianity shouldn't be man-centered. If it is, it's not Christian.

Funeral

I sat in a funeral for a young man this morning, a boy really. His daughter won’t remember him, she’s too young; she’ll look at pictures of ‘daddy,’ but’ll never know his voice, or what it’s like to be walked down the isle to her husband by him.

18 years old is far to young to die, but it happens all the time.

Whether the pressures were too much or the showing of love not enough, we’ll never know. But a gun, in his mind, seemed to solve the problems.

Sadly, for him it’s too late. His mother weeps and his father pushes all to not waste their life. The pastor said something about now being the time to think about eternity.

And though while I agree, we should think about eternity, that’s not what we should be worried about.

It’d be far better to think about Jesus and what he’s done, and not so simplistically as to think we only think about him for what we want. No, we think about him for and in all things.

Not just cause we get heaven through him, but because we get God in what he’s accomplished. Not just because we avoid hell, but more so because he gives us himself.

You see, if we only love him for what he gets us we don’t love him at all.

Rumored Thought (Pt. 4)

Here are Part1, Part 2, and Part 3.

“And who knows who are the people of God, when throughout the whole world, from its origin, the state of the Church was always such, that those who were called the people and saints of God who were not so; while others among them, who were as a refuse, and were not called the people and saints of God, were the Peoples and the Saints of God? As is manifest in the histories of Cain and Abel, of Ishmael and Isaac, of Esau and Jacob.” (Luther. p 97-98. Bondage of the Will.)

Just because one carries the title ‘Pastor’ does not make them a part of the Church. The title, you see, doesn’t make the Christian, not at all, Jesus makes a person a Christian and his Spirit gifts them to be pastor.

But leaders abound in all the world, in every religion, and in business. So is it possible to be a leader in the Church and not be a Christian? Yes. To the destruction of hundreds of souls, yes, it is possible.

Possible to preach week in and week out on the beauties of true religion, but not know it. Possible to elaborate on the nuances of the gospel and the life it ought to produce, yet dead. Possible to expound on the light of glory in the face of Jesus Christ, yet be blind.

Yet more horrifying than this, it is possible to lead a congregation to the pits of hell and be greeted by their screams upon his own entrance…

(Let that sink in and ask yourself whom are you following? A boy with a vendetta to have a following, or a man seeking to glorify God by giving up all he is to preach for nothing else than the glory of God?)

How does this tie into mission? By the pastor knowing the condition of his own soul before attempting to proclaim the gospel to other souls.

He is to be the leader in mission, and therefore he must believe what he will proclaim, or he will prove to be more of a hindrance than a help in the fight of faith; because his fight will be in another sector (maybe even another country) rather than on the same field as the true Church.

So simply being a pastor doesn’t make one Christian (and simply calling yourself a Christian doesn’t make it true). And sadly, now, it doesn’t always inspire hope that all pastors are Christian. So as those on mission for the glory of God and the good of the Church in the redemption of souls we must carefully submit to godly leadership to lead us in mission.

Evangelical Leprosy

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD). It’s a blight on evangelicalism. It really is a disease inside the Christian Church.

Let’s take the idea one word at a time.

Morals. Lists of rights and wrongs made up by every individual person to live a good life. No drugs, no pre-marital sex, no cursing, no alcohol, yes church, yes trying to be kind, yes being a ‘good’ person. The church, meeting place, is teaching how to have a better life, and be a better you, and managing debt well, and have a better marriage/parenting/spouse/fill-in-the-blank-here.

Therapy. We all know this one. There’s no guessing what it’s about. Making us feel good about who we are and what we’ve been/are. No pushing to change only the desire to see just a few more 'how to’s' added to the list of morals from above because hey, God loves you.

Deism. Deism is the belief in a Supreme Being who created the universe. But deism is nowhere near Christian. Deism holds that this Creator created then left us to play everything out. The clock-winder-god. He wound the clock and now it sits on his mantel only to be glimpsed when wanted. This is not Christianity. Not. At. All.

Morals won’t save you.

Therapy won’t make you well.

Deism doesn’t do anything.

Morals won’t save you because you can’t be good enough (Romans 3).

Therapy won’t make you well because pride kills (Psalm 31; 59:12; Prov. 8:13…).

Deism won’t save you because it is absolutely void of the Gospel.

Let this be crystal clear. The cross is central to the Christian faith. Jesus is what separates Christians from all other religions. To call deism ‘Christian’ is like calling a mouse an elephant and the moon the sun. 1) It is a lie. 2) It is a blatant disregard for the way God has made things. 3) It is pure ignorance.

It’s why we preach the Gospel. It’s why we talk about the brutality of the cross and the glory of the resurrection. It’s why Christianity is Jesus and not morals or therapy or deism.

Quite frankly - I'll go Puritanical in my speech here - this way of teaching (MTD) needs to die. Pastors who preach this will be welcomed into hell by the screams of their congregants, I don't doubt this. "Whoa, that's a little harsh Sam." I'd agree with you, if it wasn't the glory of God and the saving of souls at stake. Wishy-washy belief makes for non-commital people which causes heresy that is not Christian.

And this heresy staralizes people to the Gospel, because why would a 'good person' need saving?

A Little Spilled Coffee

She had spilled a little of her coffee on his computer - but he was drunk so he could’ve cared less. He was more infatuated with the gospel music piping out of its speakers than the little bit of coffee on the corner.

Gingerly she cleared away the coffee with the sleeve of her yellow cardigan and went a little further to clean a portion of the screen where there was no coffee, just a smudge. He just sat there in his drunken stupor, seemingly unaware she was even there. She patted his knee and left. He remained intoxicated by both the alcohol and the music.

Everyone else walked by and stared, everyone else sat around and wished he’d turn down the sound. But she stopped and stooped to care just a little more than what was necessary.

She came back a little later, he still in his stupor, with a pair of headphones. Plugging them in and with the same gentleness she had cleaned his computer with handed the headphones to him. He took them, no gratitude or second thought; no hesitation or wonder, just took them.

As time wore on still more, a cup of coffee came and a breakfast sandwich appeared; this woman had bought him breakfast as well as given her headphones up and not a word of thanks was said just that he wanted to smoke a cigarette.

Compelled by who-knows-what she served a man who could’ve cared less. She loved one most considered unlovable, one whom most passed by and judged she considered and she stopped. To call her a believer or un-believer is not a judgment to be made, but to see her example and do similarly to the glory of God is no wrong thing.

The sick and destitute, the broken and forgotten of society are still creations of God, and still in need of being loved. Though it is not evangelism to clean a screen and spend a little money it is still loving to do so. Though it won’t save a man from drunken debauchery or hell it will, by the grace of God teach others to love those of the hideous underbelly of the world who live on our streets.

Hell & Heaven

“They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.” 2 Thessalonians 1:9-10

Do you have those verses you love but forget you love them until you read them again, or is that just me? This particular one, when brought up, I love to read then I’ll sit there and go, “how did I forget how much I love this text?!?” It, this verse, shows us a few many things.

First, the punishment of unbelievers, “They,” means, “… who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (2 Thess 1:8)” Inside this punishment is the constant continual action of eternal destruction. Which means it goes on for eternity (true story). This is not unclear; this is not guesswork on the meaning of a word. ‘Eternal’ means eternal and ‘destruction’ means Frick-this-is-hell. In modern vernacular, it’ll freaking suck! So arguing the semantics of the ‘end of hell’ is about as illogical as wondering if McDonalds is healthy for every meal.

Second, the part I love to read with vigor, “… When he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who believed…” ‘Glorified… marveled at,’ he’s not saving us because we are worthy of redemption; he’s not saving us because he is so head-over-heels in love with his creation; he is saving us because he loves himself and loves us enough to give us what is vastly more gorgeous than all things, he loves us enough to give us himself!

Let’s not mix any meanings here, there will be and is Hell, it’ll be eternal; it’ll be awful. But the juxtaposition is just as unimaginable, to glory in God and to marvel at Him, AKA Heaven. I say this all not to tout the I-want-to-scare-you-into-belief doctrine, but to simply go, we must deal with Scripture and when verses like this pop up we must understand them in relation to the whole Scriptural narrative. Hell (God’s vengeance on sin) is real, yet Heaven (Glorying in and marveling at God) is just as real.

“To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.” 2 Thess. 1:11-2