For
the second week in a row, my son and I were the only ones who showed up for his
soccer team’s practice. Frustrated, I told him, “Please tell your coach that we
keep coming for practice, but no one is ever here.”
My
son rolled his eyes and said, “He’ll just tell me the same thing he did
before.”
“Which
was?”
“That
practice is now on Wednesdays, not Tuesdays.”
There is nothing that makes us feel like we are in the right
place at the wrong time any more than the Bible’s teaching on hell. Many of us
can think it is out-of-date, no longer worthy of belief. To affirm it might
place us in the right place with some Christians of days gone by, but it sure
makes us seem like we are stuck in the 20th century at best or stuck
in ugly dogma centuries ago at worst.
And keeping in mind that this week begins Advent, surely
hell would not be a suitable topic for this time of year when we celebrate the
first coming of Christ. What is more, what impact could it possibly have for us
as we look forward to the second coming of Christ!
Yet, what we will discover in this post focused on our next
passage in Revelation (20:7-15), is that there are good answers for these objections many of us have toward hell.
Where we must begin is by looking at the passage.
1. A LOOK AT
REVELATION 20:7-15.
John writes
in these nine verses the following:
And
when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison 8 and
will come out to deceive the nations that are at the four corners of the earth,
Gog and Magog, to gather them for battle; their number is like the sand of the
sea. 9 And they marched up over the broad plain of the earth and surrounded the
camp of the saints and the beloved city, but fire came down from heaven and
consumed them, 10 and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake
of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be
tormented day and night forever and ever.
11
Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence
earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. 12 And I saw the
dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then
another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by
what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea
gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in
them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.
14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second
death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the
book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
What we see here is that at the end of this age, when Jesus Christ
returns, all believers and unbelievers will be resurrected, their eternal
destiny and judgment pronounced, and unbelievers, along with Satan and his
demons, will be cast out of God’s favorable presence into their permanent place
of judgment, what we often call hell.
Revelation will go on in chapters 21-22 to look in detail at
the eternal dwelling of those who are in Christ (the new heaven and new earth).
However, here in this passage we find a shorter focus upon the eternal
conscious punishment of those outside of Christ.
Here is how the 28th question and answer of The New City Catechism summarizes the
biblical teaching on hell: “What happens after death to those not united to
Christ by faith? Answer: At the day of
judgment they will receive the fearful but just sentence of condemnation
pronounced against them. They will be cast out from the favorable presence of
God, into hell, to be justly and grievously punished, forever.”
It seems clear enough that Revelation 20:7-15 teaches the
reality of hell and that it includes eternal conscious punishment. Yet, truth
be told, for many of us, this biblical teaching causes us great problems—so
much so that we have either ceased to believe in it or we at least have ceased
to teach it.
Some would argue hell teaches a form of unjust “torture” and
this for the majority of mankind. It is not only those who heard and rejected
Christ who go to hell, but, as some would term them, the “noble pagan,” the
person who never heard the gospel and has never received and rested upon Christ
alone for salvation, even though they may have lived a relatively moral life.
So, many ask, “How can anything like the traditional doctrine of hell be
consistent with an all-powerful and all-loving God?” Or to word it in another way, “If God is both
omnipotent and omnibenevolent, hell wouldn’t exist.”
Let me now offer a six-part response to these objections to
hell. Please contact me or enter into discussion on this blog post, if you
still have questions after reading this.
2. THE SIX-PART RESPONSE TO HELL’S OPPOSITION.
To begin, God is always and, at one and the same time, both all-powerful
and all-loving (or all-good). In other
words, God is not sometimes all-powerful and full of his attributes that may
tend to bring with them more of what we might first see as severe outcomes (his
holiness, wrath, justice, etc.) and sometimes all-loving and full of his
attributes that may tend to bring with them more of what we might first see as
kind outcomes (his love, mercy, grace, etc.). Nor is God always one without the
other. Multiple times in Scripture God reveals that he has ordained the events
of history he has, in the way he has, to reveal his various attributes that he
always possesses (see Exodus 34:6-7; Deut. 6:4; Rom. 3:26; 9:22-23). In fact,
in regard to God judging those who reject him and acting in mercy toward those
who trust in him, Paul writes (Rom. 11:22): “Note then the kindness and the
severity of God: severity toward those who have fallen, but God's kindness to you,
provided you continue in his kindness.”
I would take all this to mean that hell does not cancel out
God’s love, goodness, and mercy at the same time it displays his justice,
holiness, and wrath against sin. This also suggests there is something(s) good
seen in the existence of hell and eternal conscious punishment of the
unbelieving at the hands of God.
This prepares us for the rest of our six-part response.
Second, and flowing out of the first truth, we must see that
hell is in existence because of God’s justice. We see that clearly in Revelation
20:7-15 and the fact that God as judge—a just judge who operates in conformity
with all his other attributes—condemns to hell those who remain rebellious
against and apart from Christ. The Bible is clear that God as judge of the earth
does what is right, that is, he judges people in a manner that fits who they
are, what they have done, and in a way they deserve (Gen. 8:25; Dt. 32:4).
So, in our first two answers we see that hell is both good
and just and, at the same time, does not cancel out God’s love, mercy, and
grace.
The third response offered flows out of the second: We see that
God does not send people to hell who have not chosen their own road in life
and, at least, chosen to ignore the knowledge of himself he has given in
creation.
Consider what Paul writes in Romans 1:18-23:
For
the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For
what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them.
20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature,
have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the
things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they
knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became
futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming
to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God
for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
Paul clarifies here that God reveals in creation he exists
and something of what he is like to all people. Because of this, no one can
ever stand in front of him in judgment and say, “God, I never had a chance and
so you are unjust!” Since Paul says later in Romans that a person must hear the
gospel to be saved (Rom. 10:13-17), I take Paul to mean in 1:18-23 that if a
person responded in faith to the revelation God has given, God would make sure
they heard the gospel so they could be saved.
Part of the implication of this is that people truly choose
their path and thus their end. This is why Paul goes on in Romans 1 do say
three times, “God gave them up…” (verses 24, 26, 28). Paul seems to be saying
that God has affirmed, “Ok, fine, if you want to go down that road, then go
ahead, I will allow you. But you will face the consequences.”
Fourth, though Scripture teaches God is absolutely sovereign
(1 Chronicles 29:10-19) and so works all things after the counsel of his will
(Eph. 1:11-12), nevertheless, he is not the author of sin, nor did he force man
against his will to sin (James 1:13-14; 1 John 1:5). It is not as if God made
men robots, that they lack the ability to make real choices, and yet he has
decided merely to cast them into hell, even though they may have truly wanted
to know and follow God.
Fifth, we must see that God’s justice and wrath against sin
are compatible with his love, mercy, and grace. These first five reasons are
all making the case that hell is consistent with God’s character and deserved
by humans who ignore and/or reject him. To prove this point, think about a
situation in which a man kidnaps, rapes, and kills five different women over
the course of two months. If God created a world in which the sins of this man
would not have to be paid and accounted for—either through him facing his own just
desserts or through him trusting in Jesus Christ who paid the penalty for the
sins of sinners, what would this say about the lives of those five women? It would say they are not very valuable!
What is more, it is not just the rapist, murder, or even the
Hitler-like figures of the world who must face judgment or else it calls into
question the goodness of God and his world. It is also all of us, for rebellion
against God runs through every one of our hearts. Were God to ignore that, what
would it say about his value, his worth?
It would certainly belittle him!
This fifth response leads to the sixth and final response. Some
of us may say at this point, “Ok, Tom, we can agree with you to some extent.
However, when you realize that most people live and sin against God only 60,
70, or 80 years, 100 at most, eternal conscious punishment seems very overblown
to say the least.” However, we must see
that eternal conscious punishment is not too harsh for those who ignored and/or
refused to worship the infinite eternal God. We know this for at least the three
following reasons:
·
In other cases, do we conclude that the amount
of time it took to commit the crime(s) should determine the length of
punishment? No, of course not. Take the
example of our rapist and murderer above. If a judge sentenced him only to two
months in prison, we all would cry that this is an injustice. It would belittle
those five lives and would not be an equitable and just punishment for the
crimes.
·
The Bible makes it clear that justice is served
in crimes when the punishment fits the crime (e.g. Lev. 24:17-22). We must see
that continuous sin and rebellion against the infinitely holy, good, loving,
merciful, gracious, and glorious God must face an equitable punishment—one that
is eternal. Otherwise, it belittles the true worth of God. In fact, the eternal
conscious punishment of hell heightens and emphasizes how glorious and worthy
God is!
·
We must also realize that sinners whose hearts
have never been changed and perfected will continue to sin against God for all
eternity and thus continue to accrue the need for more and greater judgment
against them.
CONCLUSION
As Proverbs 16:4 reminds us (my amplified translation): “The
LORD has done all
that he does, even his responses of judgment, in ways that fit the sins done,
and this includes the wicked facing their day of trouble.” Hell is just and
right.
Yet, how does this subject fit with Advent? In this way. It
reminds us that God sent his son into the world the first time (the first Advent)
so that through his life, atoning death, and resurrection in the place of
sinners, we would not have to face eternal conscious punishment when he returns
again (the Second Advent). This should lead us to even greater love toward God
and appreciation for the birth of Jesus!
May this deepen our love for and worship of our Savior this
Christmas!
Joyfully Delighting In Our Savior With You,
Tom
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