To the many who have asked, here are my comments about the subject of hell that I’ve written and tweeted in the past.
* Whatever the nature of eternal punishment is — conscious torment or annihilation — this question has never altered my desire to bring people to Jesus Christ. Jesus is real Life, for the here-and-now, as well as for the future. So my motive for evangelism has never been to give people a fire-insurance policy.
* The greatest Christian minds differ on the NATURE, PURPOSE and SUBJECTS of hell (subjects = who exactly will go there). But whatever we can say about it, the NT is clear on two points:
1) it exists, and 2) it’s undesirable.
* I am not a universalist. I believe that all mortals must repent and trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. With respect to those who have never heard the gospel, or those who have only heard a distorted version of it, I’m content to leave such matters into God’s hands. He is righteous, just, and merciful, and I trust Him.
* Add to that, I don’t believe that every mortal automatically receives eternal life upon birth (of the flesh). I can’t speak of what happens immediately after death. The Bible talks about a judgment after death, but it’s not crystal clear on what happens at the moment of death. People can only speculate.
* “Jesus is not one of many ways to approach God, nor is He the best of several ways; He is the only way.” ~ A. W. Tozer
* If there’s life on other planets & they need a Redeemer, Jesus of Nazareth is it.
* Some people will pass out after they see who makes it in the end. Angels will be running around all over heaven with smelling salts to wake them up (Luke 13:28, example). [I wrote this in Reimagining Church.]
* “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.” ~ H. Richard Niebuhr, summarizing the gospel of liberal theology.
* Here’s my concluding statement on hell: When I’m finished exploring and declaring the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ with my brothers and sisters, I’ll get around to dissecting the anatomy of hell.
After I wrote the above, I found N.T. Wright’s observations on the subject. You’ll see that Wright makes many of the same points I have made above. He says,
My usual counter question is: “Why are Americans so fixated on hell?” Far more Americans ask me about hell than ever happens in my own country. And I really want to know, why is it that the most prosperous affluent nation on earth is really determined to be sure that they know precisely who is going to be frying in hell and what the temperature will be and so on.
There’s something quite disturbing about that actually, especially when your nation and mine has done quite a lot in the last decade or two to drop bombs on people elsewhere and to make a lot of other people’s lives hell. So I think there are some quite serious issues about why people want to ask that question.
Having said that, I am not a universalist. I’ve never been universalist. Someone quoted a theologian saying, “I’m not a universalist, but maybe God is.” That’s kind of a neat way of saying, “Ok, there’s stuff in Scripture which is a little puzzling about this, and we can’t be absolutely sure all down the line.”
But it seems to me that the New Testament is very clear that there are people who do reject God and reject what would have been His best will for them, and God honors that decision. How that works and how you then deal with the questions which result I have written about at some length.
I do think it’s good to stir things up because so many people, as I say, particularly in American culture, really want to know the last fine-tuned details of hell. And it seems to be part of their faith, often a central part of their faith, that a certain number of people are simply going to go to hell and we know who these people are.
This brings me to a new offering on the subject. It’s a book that argues with sophistication the “conditional” view of hell, which is essentially annihilationism opposed to eternal conscious torment.
While I do not dogmatically stand on any specific doctrine of hell, this book presents one possible explanation of the subject.
And I love the title, Rethinking Hell.
This is from the publisher:
Most evangelical Christians believe that those people who are not saved before they die will be punished in hell forever. But is this what the Bible truly teaches? Do Christians need to rethink their understanding of hell? In the late twentieth century, a growing number of evangelical theologians, biblical scholars, and philosophers began to reject the traditional doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell in favor of a minority theological perspective called conditional immortality. This is view contends that the unsaved are resurrected to face divine judgment, just as Christians have always believed, but due to the fact that immortality is only given to those who are in Christ, the unsaved do not exist forever in hell. Instead, they face the punishment of the “second death”—an end to their conscious existence. This volume brings together excerpts from a variety of well-respected evangelical thinkers, including John Stott, John Wenham, and E. Earle Ellis, as they articulate the biblical, theological, and philosophical arguments for conditionalism. These readings will give thoughtful Christians strong evidence that there are indeed compelling reasons for rethinking hell.
Order Rethinking Hell on discount
Hi Frank,
This question keeps making the rounds – which goes to prove Quincy above said. It would seem that the focus for most Christians, especially those in this country, is the question of Hell after death: whether that be due to fear (this whole purgatory thing was begun by the church centuries ago as a means to control and manipulate folks, right?!) or out of desire to see the object of intense hate burn forever in ‘hell’. Thank you for the information on this new book.
I don’t know – but I do remember some references in the New Testament that state that the last things to be burned up in the Lake of Fire (which is God – the All-Consuming Fire) would be death and hell. We see talk of new heaven and new earth, for all old things pass away. Evil can not live where God (or Christ or Holy Spirit) are. The human body can not burn indefinitely, but it can have its carnality burned out by the Refiner’s Fire (the hand of God). And I don’t imagine that spirits/souls (released by the body upon death) can burn. Hmmmmm …
But I agree with Quincy: we spend too much time in one way or the other on Hell. Instead, we should be meditating upon those things that are honorable, true, righteous etc. Or in other words, Jesus Christ! Blessings to you all!
I believe a lot of the questions about hell are because there’s a lot of confusion due to translation. Most versions translate Hades as hell. Hades is the holding cell for the dead. Hell seems to be referring to the lake of fire. That’s a big difference! With this understanding it makes sense to say that Hades gets thrown into the lake of fire Once the dead are judged there’s no more need for a holding cell. Rev. 20:13, 14
I think American’s interest in hell/eternal destiny is also due to excessive free time. There’s more time to think about the future. There’s also more time to get in trouble then think about the consequences. Americans also seem to emphasize a heaven or hell gospel I don’t agree with. I do agree with ministering the unsearchable riches of Christ!
Thanks for sharing this resource!
I have seen people discussing the subject of hell passionately just to end up almost empty, as I have personally felt. I thought it was perhaps due to the fact that I knew very few on the subject. But I still felt the same way after hearing people who seemed to profoundly know more on HELL.
Well, It’s now evident that the only way the subject of HELL can be usefull to any Christian is by revealing the “unsearchable riches of Christ Jesus ” who is the MEANING of all things, including HELL.
Thanks for sharing, Frank.
It’s interesting to hear N.T. Wright’s response about the huge fascination with Hell being a largely American phenomenon compared with his country. I think that shows that we’re largely not focused on Christ above all. We can never exhaust Him, and He isn’t in Hell. So why focus on Hell for anymore than occasional thought and discussion. Why divide from brothers and sisters because of varying views when scripture itself really isn’t even that clear. Entire evangelism movements are focused around Hell rather than the person of Jesus Christ. It’s very backwards. Again, it’s very interesting to realize it’s largely an American occupation.
Great thoughts, Frank. I was reading through parts of ‘Rethinking Hell’ a few days ago… Having been raised a traditionalist/annihilationist , I was really interested in the arguments for the conditionalist side. While I understand that the ‘immortality of the soul ‘ may be rooted more in Greek culture than Biblical theology, the main issue for me is this: whatever the nature of eternal punishment is, I pray my desire will always be to bring people to Christ, to be salt and light, and to love in a way that demonstrates the grace and mercy I was shown.
Thanks as always!
Love this!!
“When I’m finished exploring and declaring the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ with my brothers and sisters, I’ll get around to dissecting the anatomy of hell.”
In my experience, so many want to draw lines about who is going to Hell just to hold it over that group. It’s such a distorted view of salvation that puts the focus on what we are saved FROM, rather than what we are saved into.
Thanks for pointing out this resource. Peace!