WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HELL?
Editorial
November/ December, 1984
Volume 19, Number 6
The August, 1984 Church of the Brethren MESSENGER
featured a Bible Study entitled "A way out of hell." The writer says that
in the Old Testament, the place of the dead is nowhere a place of punishment
or torment. And in the New Testament, the use of the word "hell" is vague.
He says further that the word "hell" is usually used "not as a place but
in reference to broken relationships ... Hell comes in the form of suffering,
killing, conflict, hopelessness, meaninglessness, and brokenness. Hell
seems to be a condition and an attitude ... Hell is made by humans. It
is seen in suffering, class systems, racism, and the lack of human rights...
Who needs God to create hell? Humans seem to do an adequate job by themselves."
It is quite obvious that the dogma about eternal damnation
in hell (which is so repugnant to the 20th century mind) is being attacked
mercilessly today. The sentences just cited are one more evidence that
many Brethren are not willing to accept the Bible truth about hell. But
if the Bible is taken as God's Word, "hell" is a reality which Jesus himself
taught and warned against.
God's wrath is not against the sinner because he is a
sinner. All human beings are sinners. God's wrath is against sin -against
sin wherever it is found. Only in this light can we understand the implications
of the Cross and the meaning of our Saviour's death. The death of the Son
of God was not a sentimental example; it was an act of necessity. The blood
that He shed has power to deliver from the guilt and penalty of sin (Romans
3:23-25).
Jesus spoke of heaven as a real place. "I go and
prepare a place for you" (John 14:3). Jesus likewise spoke of hell as
a real place. He told about the unrepentant rich man who wanted a drop
of water to cool his tongue and asked that his brothers be warned "lest
they also come to this place of torment" (Luke 16:28).
The Bible teaching about the reality of hell serves a
number of useful purposes:
1) It becomes an incentive to help us stay on the straight
and narrow road.
2) It provides a motive which calls us to try and get
people to become reconciled to God.
3) It assures us that in the end all the injustices that
have occurred on earth will be duly punished.
We read in Scripture, "Knowing therefore the terror of
the Lord, we persuade men" (2 Corinthians 5:11). We learn also that because
life's injustices will be duly punished, there is no need for us to retaliate.
God says, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, saith the Lord" (Romans 12:19).
It may be difficult to "feel" that the neighbor across
the street (who is "such a nice guy") is really destined to a Christless
eternity - but so it is - unless there is real genuine repentance and a
clear embracing of Jesus Christ as Substitute and Saviour (John 3:36; Romans
5:9; 1 John 5:12). Brother and sister - are you warning of the wrath to
come? There is a bridge out down the road. Are you keeping quiet?
--H. S. M.
Whatever Happened To Hell?
By Roger Schoenhals
I remember hearing a sermon on hell. I was a child, and it so frightened
me that I wanted to be a Christian just to escape going to that awful place.
That was thirty years ago.
Things have changed today. A sermon on hell is about as rare as a wild
buffalo whistling "Dixie." We hear about God's love, discipleship, spiritual
gifts, social ministries, moral development, and so forth. But the wrath
of God? Nothing!
One reason is the pendulum. In our reaction to the excesses and distortions
of the past, we have swung over to the other side where we feel comfortable
only with positive themes like love and spiritual fulfillment. The "good
life" brand of Christianity has little room for God's holiness, the wretchedness
of sin, everlasting judgment, sorrow, repentance, and righteous living.
Another reason for neglect of teaching on the wrath and judgment of
God is our desire to make converts. We tend to dangle the goodies in front
of them and tell them the stuff about hell later.
And then there is the contemporary emphasis on determinism -you really
can't help being the way you are. Its great exponent, B. F. Skinner, has
done much to relieve us of our guilt. He has taught us that we are only
social animals acting in conditioned ways. So there's no such thing as
personal sin, accountability, judgment, or hell.
One of the strongest influences leading us away from a serious view
of hell is the philosophy of humanism. Man is good. At his best, he would
never let a fellow human being suffer. And since God is better than man,
He would certainly not allow any of His creatures to suffer eternally in
hell! This line of reasoning presented itself in a TV news special on being
"born again." Bill Moyers zeroed in on the question of hell with a Christian
teenager: "I know people who are moral and good and who do not claim to
be born again. How could a good God allow them to go to hell?"
The young man shrugged his shoulders and answered, "That's what the
Bible says." And so you see, now we come to the basic issue - the Bible.
Do we believe it? Is it the Word of God?
The pendulum, easy believism, determinism, humanism - these are all
peripheral. At the core is a breakdown of Biblical authority. The less
authority people ascribe to the Scripture, the less seriously people take
the teachings on hell.
We can play our games with the Bible, sidestepping and distorting passages
that conflict with contemporary thought. We can try to tunnel under, go
over, or steer around references that offend our human sensitivities. We
can ignore, pretend, and even cast aside. But does that change anything?
The Word of God remains true. Forever.
The church's calling is not to judge and distort the Word; it is to
believe it and to declare it to a crooked and perverse generation. The
entire
Word.
Even the parts about hell.
Jesus believed in hell. Get a Bible and look up the references. Matthew
5:22; Matthew 8:12; Matthew 13:42; Matthew 24:51; Matthew 25:41,46; Mark
9:43-47; Luke 12:5; Luke 16:23-24; John 5:29. Jesus didn't mince words.
He talked more about hell than about heaven.
Hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. It was never intended
for man. We sentence ourselves to hell by going against God's plan for
our salvation. He is "not wishing that any should perish, but that all
should reach repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).
Hell is horrible. The way we throw that word around today only dilutes
our understanding of the actual conditions. Even the analogies in Scripture
(lake of fire, bottomless pit, gnashing teeth) do injustice to the reality
of being cut off from all that is good and true.
Hell is eternal. The teaching of a temporary punishment is a perversion
of the truth. Jesus clearly declared that hell is final and forever. I'm
not calling for a return to the old days when preachers, like Jonathan
Edwards, dangled their listeners over the fiery lake of hell. And I'm not
urging
for
a reduction of our teaching and preaching on God's love. I'm pleading
for
balance and for the whole picture: love which includes the necessary dimension
of His holy wrath.
What happens when the church takes seriously the Biblical teaching on
hell? A soberness fills our thinking and praying. A sense of urgency grips
us. We proclaim salvation earnestly. Recognizing the holy and just nature
of God, we show greater concern for righteous living. We flee from evil
and from all that is impure. We desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit.
And, most important, when we take seriously the Biblical teaching on
hell, we gain a more clear understanding of the love of God. It's only
when we see the awfulness of sin and how much God hates it, that we fall
more deeply in love with the pure Son of God who took upon Himself the
sins of the whole world that we might be saved from guilt and delivered
from the wrath of a holy God. God's love is hollow without hell.
Adapted from an article published
by Light and Life Press, copyright 1977.
Used by permission.
Everything Jesus Taught About Hell
By Herbert Lockyer
From the record of our Lord's ministry among human beings, we discover
that some of the most solemn utterances about the eternal woe of the lost
fell from the lips of Him who died that people might not perish. No matter
how men may try to do away with hell, it is still in existence and was
a grim reality to Jesus who constantly warned his hearers of its terrors.
It is true that some of His descriptions of the place of final punishment
may be figurative, but still they indicate a dreadful reality. The words
He used all imply utter and hopeless ruin and reveal how candid He was
when speaking of the eternal destiny of those rejecting Him and His witness.
It was the Saviour - who came as the personification of divine love - that
spoke of:
"The broad way that leadeth to destruction" (Matthew 7:13)
"Outer darkness" (Matthew 8:12; Matthew 22:13; Matthew 25:30)
"Unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43-44)
"Wailing and gnashing of teeth" (Matthew 13:42,50)
"The whole body cast into hell" (Matthew 5:29-30). "Everlasting fire"
(Matthew 25:41,46)
Yet, speaking so faithfully of the reality, the fearfulness, and the
eternity of God's just retribution, Jesus always displayed His matchless
love and His unlimited grace - for it was the contemplation of the sinner's
doom that caused His tears. Can you not hear the sob of unwanted love in
His plea: "How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen
doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not" (Luke 13:34)?
It is not generally realized that Jesus spoke more frequently of the
place of woe than of the abode of eternal peace. His most graphic and detailed
representation of the place, originally prepared for the devil and his
angels, is the illustration He used for the rich man and Lazarus. The rich
man is tormented in hell's flame, not because he was rich, but because
his soul's deepest interests were neglected. He prays in agony for a drop
of water to cool his tongue, but his suffering and despair are increased
tenfold by the sight of the felicity of the beggar whom he had despised
and neglected, now at a heavenly banquet - and also by the fact that a
great gulf is fixed between paradise and perdition. There is no
purgatory in which the rich man could cleanse himself of his sins and errors,
and then recline on Abraham's bosom. Hell, as we understand it from the
teaching of Jesus, means eternal separation from God.
What must be borne in mind is that God is not willing that any should
perish but that a# should come to repentance (2 Peter 3:9) -and
therefore, never sends sinners to hell. The eternal punishment of
the wicked is not arbitrarily imposed by God, but is the inevitable outcome
of sin itself. The path to hell is the sinner's own self-chosen course,
being left by God to reap the full and dire consequences of sin. Having
persistently separated themselves from God, sinners who die in their sin,
banish themselves from His presence and abandon themselves to reap the
full harvest of their own evil character and of their rejection of Calvary's
provision for their sin. God wills that all persons should be saved (I
Timothy 2:4), but to the wicked, Jesus was obliged to say: "Ye will not
come to me that ye might have life" (John 5:40; see also John 3:19). Although
Jesus was the Son of God "with power," He never compelled submission.
The Lord's invitation is, "If any man will." Because He died that all persons
might be forgiven all their sin, Jesus gives us not a chance, but
every
chance
to accept His gift of eternal life.
The terribleness of the sayings of Jesus about hell are all the greater
when we remember that there is no hint of the termination of the sinner's
doom. Why did Jesus not safeguard His words from misapprehension, if behind
them, there lay an assurance of restoration and mercy after the grave?
The fact is that when Jesus used the word "eternal" - whether of eternal
life or of eternal damnation - He meant a finality of state. Sometimes
when people fail to reconcile the Saviour's love with His teaching on hell
- they drop one of the concepts - but usually it is the teaching on hell
which is dropped. Yet He who taught that "God so loved the world," also
declared that if human beings fail to believe in His bountiful provision
for their sin, then they must "perish" - which means not annihilation ,
but eternal banishment from His presence (John 3:16).
It is our obligation to preach the woes of Scripture as well
as the blesseds, but when it comes to warning sinners to "flee the
wrath to come," may it be with tears in our voices. This was how Paul preached
(Philippians 3:18). May compassion of heart be ours as we warn the sinner
of the peril of being forever lost!
Adapted from Chapter 5 of the book,
Everything
Jesus Taught (Volume 5),
published by Harper
& Row,
1976. Used by permission.
The Wicked Shall Be Turned Into Hell
By Bishop J. C. Ryle
Let others hold their peace about hell if they will. I dare not do so.
I see it plainly in Scripture and I must speak of it. I fear that thousands
are on that broad road that leads to hell, and I would arouse them to a
sense of the peril before them. What would you say of the person who saw
his neighbor's house in danger of being burned down, but never raised the
cry of "Fire"? Can it be in bad taste to speak of hell? It is a matter
of charity to warn people of their danger. It is my duty to declare all
the counsel of God. If I never spoke of hell, I should think I had kept
back something that was profitable, and should look on myself as an accomplice
of the devil.
Beware of new and strange doctrines about hell and the eternity of punishment.
Beware of manufacturing a God of your own - a God who is all love, but
not holy - a God who has a heaven for everybody, but a hell for none -
a God who can show good and bad to be side for side in time, but will make
no distinction between good and bad in eternity. Such a God is an idol
of your own - as true an idol as was ever molded out of brass or clay.
The imagination of your own mind has made him. He is not the God of the
Bible, and aside from the God of the Bible, there is no God at all. Your
heaven would be no heaven at all. A heaven containing all sorts of characters
mixed together indiscriminately, would be miserable discord indeed. There
would be little difference between it and hell. Ah, reader, there is a
hell! Take heed lest you find it out too late.
Beware of forming fanciful theories of your own, and then trying to
make the Bible square with them. Beware of making selections from the Bible
to suit your taste - refusing like a spoiled child whatever you think is
bitter - and seizing whatever you think is sweet. What is all this but
taking Jehoiakim's penknife and cutting God's Word to pieces? What does
it amount to but telling God that you, a poor, short-lived worm, know what
is good for the human being, better than He does? This will not do. You
must take the Bible as it is. You must read it and believe it all. You
must come to the reading of Scripture in the spirit of a little child.
Never say, "I believe this verse for I like it; I receive this for I can
understand it; I refuse that for I cannot reconcile it with my views."
"Nay, but 0 man, who art thou that repliest against God?" (Romans 9:20).
Surely it were better to say about every portion of the Word of God, "Speak,
Lord, for thy servant heareth."
If people would consistently accept every part of the Bible, they would
never try to throw overboard the doctrine of eternal punishment of the
wicked. Jesus says, "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment;
but the righteous into life eternal." (Matthew 25:46).
Bishop Ryle was born in England
in 1816.
He was author of the well known
Expository
Thoughts on the Gospels.
His chief desire was to "exalt
the Lord Jesus Christ and to make Him beautiful and glorious in the eyes
of men."