I was recently given the opportunity to substitute teach at a local Christian school on the subject of hell. This issue is at the forefront of the Christian community right now because of Rob Bell’s book Love Wins. First of all, this is a huge and difficult issue to talk about because of its nature and the sheer number of places that this issue touches. Sin, salvation, Scripture, and free will are just examples of the areas that this issue is a part of. Secondly, as Rob Bell has shown, this is not a simple black and white issue. Third, I heard a podcast recently about certain doctrines in Christianity that we like to call “closet doctrines.” These are doctrines that we believe, but that we don’t really want others to know we believe. And this is one of those doctrines. It’s a tough doctrine to believe and a tough doctrine to defend, especially because the subject is so emotionally loaded, but I believe that when we come to a biblical understanding of the glory of God and a biblical understanding of our sin, there is only one logical conclusion.
First of all, let’s give Rob Bell his props. He has his undergrad degree from Wheaton College and his Masters of Divinity degree from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California. As much as those who strongly disagree with Bell would like, he cannot be simply dismissed. He is not a theological lightweight. He has studied this issue in depth and when Rob Bell talks, a lot of people listen. I believe that in order to understand Rob Bell, you need to understand his theology. He is a proponent of narrative theology (also called post-liberal theology) which proposes that the church’s use of the Bible focus on a narrative presentation of the faith as regulative for the development of a coherent and systematic theology. This can really be seen in the very first chapter of his break-out book Velvet Elvis. He talks of doctrines not being walls to defend, but springs on a trampoline. While I get what he is trying to say, his theology feels a little…well…”springy” to me. As much as we would like to think that the changing of certain theological beliefs would not alter Christianity, that’s simply not true. He gives the example of a “what if” scenario that involved us discovering irrefutable evidence that Jesus was not virgin-born. If that happened, would it destroy Christianity? The answer is yes. It would destroy orthodox Christianity. It would deny the divinity of Christ and thus would deny His ability to be the substitutionary atonement for our sin on the cross and any version of Christianity that was left after that would not really be Christianity, but some watered-down version of a moral religion. It’s all related. But Bell thinks different. While in one breath affirming the orthodox view of the virgin birth of Christ, he also says that the denial of that belief does not destroy Christianity. It is very clear that Bell has a very different idea of what Christianity is than has been historically defined.
With that all being said, Bell does present some strong arguments for hell not being the hell that we have taught all these years. In order to tackle this issue, I first came up with a working definition of hell that I had some help with from my ESV Study Bible. Hell is “an eternal condition of torment cut off from the presence of God.” There are several places that this definition can be attacked, but first of all, let’s start with the obvious. What is the evidence that hell actually exists? The evidence exists primarily in the Bible, the infallible word of God. If you do not believe that the Bible is infallible (or inerrant, if you will), then obviously, you have reason to believe that hell does not exist. The Bible is replete with examples of hell. Just pick up a Bible dictionary and look up the word. We’ll get to the actual words used for “hell” in the Bible in a moment, but let’s take this subject way back to the beginning. If there is a hell, who deserves to go there? The Bible is very clear; we all do. Why? Because we are all sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The glory of God is the standard and not one of us has not violated that standard. But God gives us his grace to free us from that judgment if we accept Christ as Lord and Savior. And let me make this clear: I believe and affirm that Jesus Christ is the only way to God the Father. Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, or any other religion besides Christianity, does not affirm that Jesus Christ is the only way to a relationship with God, therefore, I believe that they are in error and those that do not receive God’s grace through Jesus Christ will go to a “place” that is cut off from His grace.
Or will they? Universal Reconciliationists believe that ultimately all people will be reconciled to God and be with Him. In their belief, if one does not accept Christ in this life, they will be given the opportunity after death to accept Christ and they will. They point to passages like Ephesians 1:9-10 and Colossians 1:20 as evidence for this. However, the context of these verses does not imply or infer that all will be reconciled to Christ. God is not regenerating their will to accept Him after death. We are not talking about people willingly coming to Christ. We are talking about the quelling of a rebellion. These people are not coming to God on their own free will; they are coming to Him as defeated enemies. When the United States defeated the Empire of Japan in August, 1945, we did not convert them to our side. We dropped two massive bombs to end the war and when they surrendered, it was not from their own free will. The Empire of Japan was defeated. So it is with those who will bow to Christ in the end. It will not be of their own free will. It will be as defeated foes.
So, assuming that these defeated foes are not going to heaven, where would they go? There are only two options here: hell or obliteration. This is where it gets a little tricky. There are some evangelical theologians who do argue for the latter. Most of these would argue that the unbeliever would go to hell, but only for a limited period of time. In other words, these theologians believe that hell is not eternal, even though, at least in English, our Bibles use the word. One argument that Bell brings up is the linguistic argument. The Greek words usually translated “eternal punishment” are “aion kolazo.” Most of us are familiar with the first word because of the phrase “aions of time” or something like that. “Aion” is indeed an age or a period of time. The more controversial word is “kolazo.” This is a horticultural term that refers to pruning or “a time of trimming” or “an intense period of correction.” The other words used for hell are “sheol” in Hebrew which refers to a general place of the dead; “hades,” which is the Greek word for “sheol,”; ”tartarus,” which is only used one time in the Scriptures in one of the epistles of Peter and is a borrowed term from Greek mythology that refers to the underworld or “abyss”; and “Gehenna,” a term originally referring to the valley of Hinnom, south of Jerusalem, where the filth, garbage, and dead animals of the city were cast out and burned. I don’t really have the time to address each use of the words, but two of the strongest objections to the doctrine of eternal hell are “kolazo” and “Gehenna.” Some view the use of the world “Gehenna” as a strict metaphor for waste in the sense that it does not refer to hell, but rather was a word picture. I believe it is indeed a word picture, but more importantly that Jesus referred to it as a word picture because it was the closest way to illustrate what hell might be like. In other words, I believe Jesus was using this word to refer to a literal hell.
I do think that Bell brings up a very strong argument here for hell being a definite time period as opposed to eternal. But how do you counter that we often talk about “eternal life” in the church, but we don’t talk about “eternal death?” How is it that it seems logical (or at least comforting) to believe that we will have eternal life, but not logical that the unbeliever will experience eternal death? The argument that I have personally heard is that the term “eternal death” is an oxymoron. If death is definitive, then how can one experience that eternally?
One different perspective on this is to look at the issue of sin. Both Calvinists, Arminians, and those in between affirm the doctrine of Total Depravity. The doctrine of Total Depravity says that sin has affected our whole person. Paul says it best when he calls us “slaves to sin” (Romans 6:17). There is not one aspect of ourselves that is not affected by sin. This includes our motivations and our free will. We do not possess the ability to accept Christ much like I don’t have the ability to jump to the moon. Furthermore, our free will is also affected. Apart from the working of the Holy Spirit, I do not have the ability to accept Christ and even if I made a “decision” to accept Christ apart from the Holy Spirit, my motivations are depraved and that makes the decision null and void. Calvinists solve this problem with Unconditional Election, which says that God unconditionally elects some to salvation based upon no conditions at all. The Holy Spirit then, through the process of regeneration (the objective work of God) “repairs” the will in order for the elect one to possess the faith to accept Christ and subsequently repent of their sins. Arminians solve this problem by the doctrine of Prevenient Grace. This doctrine states that God gives to everyone a grace that allows them to accept or reject the Holy Spirit. Thus, the regeneration of a person happens after their decision and not before. I said all of that to make the point that whether you are Calvinist, Arminian, or somewhere in between, an objective act of God is still needed for the unbeliever to accept Christ. Since this is the case, it helps us understand just what the depths of our depravity are. We’re not talking about an “oops.” “Sorry God, I didn’t mean to offend you.” We are talking about something so innocuous that leads Paul to describe the unbeliever as “dead in sin” (Ephesians 2). If God’s glory is the highest thing that can be thought of besides God Himself, a God that is infinite in His being, then it seems logical that that infinity is also included on the other side. In other words, the believer has eternal life, a glorious existence with God, and the unbeliever has eternal death, a horrible existence apart from God’s presence. It seems logical then that the violation of something infinitely glorious should have infinite consequences.
Secondly, if we affirm that hell exists, where is it? The truth is, I don’t know. And I think any attempt to try and point to it on a map is ridiculous. That is why I described hell as a “condition.” It cannot be in the earth, as some have said, because we will have a new heaven and new earth. It could be “out there” in the universe somewhere, but I simply don’t know. The problem though that we have with saying that hell may not be a physical place is that, using the same logic as above, we could argue that heaven isn’t a real place. I do believe that much of the language describing heaven is symbolic, but I have a hard time imagining that it is not an actual place. I do think though that my definition stating that hell is a “condition” still leaves room for hell to be an actual place.
Third, the Bible is clear that hell will be full of torment. There is often a tendency in our zeal to preach and teach on hell to overemphasize the physical torments of hell, the issues of fire, darkness, and death. However, I think it is more important to recognize that hell will be full of torment because first and foremost, there will be no presence of God. Now here is another tricky one. If God is omnipresent (everywhere all the time) and hell is an actual place, then wouldn’t that mean that God is in hell? I think this lends support to my definition that hell may not be an actual place, but a condition. If it is a condition, then this argument is null and void. This also may speak to what we mean by the presence of God. One of the students in the class brought this up and I thought it was a great argument. What do we really mean by the presence of God? Is it his physical presence (isn’t God a spirit)? Or are we maybe talking about his influence? It was tempting to talk about hell being the absence of the glory of God, but if hell is about the violation of God’s glory, then hell must exist to glorify God.
Some of you just went…”What?! Hell exists to glorify God?! How does that work?!”
James Hamilton puts it this way:
“In sum, hell glorifies God because
• it shows that he keeps his word;
• it shows his infinite worth, lasting forever;
• it demonstrates his power to subdue all who rebel against him;
• it shows how unspeakably merciful he is to those who trust him;
• it upholds the reality of love by visiting justice against those who reject God, who is love;
• it vindicates all who suffered to hear or proclaim the truth of God’s word;
• and it shows the enormity of what Jesus accomplished when he died to save all who would trust him from the hell they deserved. If there were no hell, there would be no need for the cross.”
It’s tough, isn’t it? To think of hell in such a way grates us. But I think that my ultimate conclusion here is that the eternal punishment of hell is the only logical and biblical answer to violations to the eternal glory of God. In short, the punishment fits the crime.
I think it is important to mention again that I do not believe that the belief in an eternal hell is an essential to salvation. Indeed, many evangelical theologians believe that hell is not eternal or at least raise serious objections, but in my opinion, hell is real and hell is eternal, and trust me, you don’t want to go there. Hell exists to glorify God, for it is only through Him that we find our ultimate reason for living, the eternal and matchless glory of God.
Soli Deo Gloria!
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