A Burning Issue

An examination of the nature of Hell, a report by the Alliance Commission on Unity and Truth among Evangelicals.

In the Statement of Faith of the editorial staff at CWM, where this Publication is issued, we simply state our position as follows:
We believe, "The human race is inherently wicked and thus doomed to eternal punishment in the lake of fire also known as Hell (Romans 3: 10-11&23; 6:23; Rev 20:15 & 10)."
The recently established first Christian Witness Ministries Fellowship (CWMF) in Brisbane Australia adopted the following:
"We believe in … the inherent corruptness of mankind through the fall necessitating personal and individual repentance from sin and faith towards God leading to regeneration by grace through faith alone in the atoning Blood of Christ. We believe in the eternal separation from God and conscious punishment of the finally impenitent (Romans 3:10-11 & 23; 6:23; Revelation 20:15 & 10)."

This is our position on the following topic.



By NEIL RICHARDSON

A STORY was told of some unconverted students who went to visit the chaplain of a university. They asked him abruptly if he believed in hell or not. He ummed and ahhed and said it was a difficult question. Cutting through his shoddy fudge, the young men interrupted him. "If hell doesn't exist, then you're a waste of space in this university — get out! We don't need you! If it does exist, you are the cruellest man in this place for not warning us and explaining how we can be rescued from it!"
Hell is surely the most fraught and distressing issue we Christians must face. If it exists, and the bible's words on it are true, then the vast majority of those with whom we work, play, eat and live are going there (Matthew 7:13). People we love. And it is a terrifying place, a place of total condemnation, outer darkness and utter despair (Matthew 25:30). If it does not exist, if there is no heaven then we are surely wasting our time believing, praying and worshipping- instead we should "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die" (1 Corinthians 15:32).
Humans, then, can be divided broadly into three groups.
1. Those who believe in hell and have been saved from it by the work of Christ at Calvary (1 Timothy 1:15);
2. Those who believe in hell and will go there due to a rejection of the gospel (2 Thess 1:8,9);
3. Those who do not believe in hell but will nonetheless go there for the reason just given. It would seem to me that the standard emotional states of each of these three groups are as follows.

1. Compassionate urgency

2. Anguished rebellion

3. Complacent rebellion

Evangelical Alliance

Update

Strengths

Content

• Death precedes hell. "Hell is a fundamentally post-mortem phenomenon." Our bodies will perish as a direct consequence of the Fall and our sin.
  
• Hell versus Reincarnation. The appeal of reincarnation, it is suggested, is that it "offers successive chances for redemption after death" and can give some explanation as to why some suffer more than others in this life (moral imbalances are corrected in the next). Rightly, reincarnation or metempsychosis (the transmigration of the soul) are rejected: Hebrews 9:27 states that judgement immediately follows death, the gospel is of grace not works, Jesus does not allow that sin and sickness are a "legacy of a `previous' life" (John 9:1ff), notwithstanding ancient oddball Origen's neoplatonic nonsense on the matter! This is a very helpful section if you have opportunity to witness to Hindus or Buddhists (as I was the other night, in fact) or Westerners who rather fancy a spot of Eastern mysticism in their otherwise materialist existence.
  
• Death and resurrection in relation to judgment. The sealing of one's fate at death, the general resurrection of the dead (both righteous and unrighteous), and the final judgement are all asserted.
  
• The criteria of final judgment is "based fundamentally on whether or not they have been justified by grace through faith in Christ" (my italics). As with the qualifications mentioned before, I prefer `solely' to `fundamentally' as the latter would seem to admit exceptions. Indeed, the next sentence reads: "The New Testament hints that God may take account of different peoples' relative knowledge of the gospel (Matt 11:21-24; Rom 2:12-16)." However, it goes on to say that "even so, it is a cardinal tenet of evangelical doctrine that salvation is a divine rather than a human initiative. Or as the doctrinal basis of the EA puts it, the justification of the sinner occurs `solely by the grace of God through faith in Jesus Christ crucified and risen from the dead'". Well, there is the word we were looking for: `solely'! The report is extremely diligent here, and makes sure that we understand that there seems in the bible to be a "notion of proportionality" in both reward and punishment, and also touches upon the "value of good deeds done by the unsaved", concluding "that good deeds redound to His glory rather than to the glory of those who perform them".
  
• The Judgment of the Saved. This thought-provoking and judiciously concise section mentions the possibility of reproof (though not perdition) at the final judgement for believers who have neglected good works. 1 Corinthians 3:15 though not cited here certainly seems to support this. This passage also flags up the `loss of salvation' issue, giving a range of Arminian and Calvinist proof-texts to either support or deny this thesis. The authors show their prudence here once again in refusing to be drawn into this age-old debate (if they had been, the book would have not been about hell and about 1000 pages longer!). I am confident in the Calvinist (or rather biblical!) doctrine of `The Perseverance of the Saints' (i.e. Once saved, always saved), but I remind readers that one of the punishments for the demons in hell in Paradise Lost was forever to be arguing the Predestination-Free Will controversy! The scriptures present a Saviour who is able to save to the uttermost (Heb 7:25) and will not lose any that the Father has given Him (John 6:39;10:28); but they also warn professing Christians that "the love of most will grow cold" (Matt 24:12) and that "if anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned" (John 15:6).
  
• Punishment beyond death itself. This is a small but crucial
  section claiming that "if evangelicals differ on whether salvation can be lost, they are virtually unanimous in affirming that the punishment which issues from the last judgment extends beyond death, rather than being merely
  constituted by death itself" This is reassuring --annihilationists are not offering an easy escape for those who reject Christ, as I had feared. Yet is some of the power of the gospel vitiated by diminishing the punishment people are being saved from?
  
• The intermediate state. There is a general acceptance that there is an intermediate state for the soul after death whilst it `waits for' a new body at the final resurrection. Whether this is conscious or not (soul sleep) is debated.
  
• Purgatory. Four pages are
  devoted to this non-biblical concept which seems, prima facie, excessive when only half a side is given to many of the other sections. But it is certainly important to reckon with why such a doctrine should appear (the view that suffering cleanses people and makes them whole), and also that it is not, even within Roman Catholic dogma, a `second chance' teaching. "This process is for those who have already had their ultimate salvation assured." Pleasingly, though, the section finishes by hitting at what for me is the pernicious heresy underlying the doctrine of purgatory: "If the death of Christ justifies believers to God once for all redeeming them from sin and guilt, then to add another stage where this process is repeated denies the power of the cross." Amen and amen.
  
• Universal salvation and the population of heaven. Universalism teaches that in the end all human
  beings will be saved and that if hell exists it will eventually be empty. Greek church `fathers' Clement, Origen and Gregory of Nyssa espoused this view, arguing that "since God was merciful, his punishment of sinners must be medicinal rather than endlessly punitive". Nice idea, shame it's not biblical. Origen went as far as saying that "even Satan could be redeemed". Augustine, Luther and Calvin all thoroughly rejected these notions, largely because of `justifi-cation by faith alone'. Universalism can be known as `restitutionism', in that God is supposedly seeking to restore (ultimately, and possibly through using purgatory and hell as processes) everything to Himself and His new heaven and earth. Three types of universalism are outlined: pluralistic (people saved through other religions), inclusivistic (non-Christians may be redeemed `unknowingly' by the grace of Christ; this position is taken by Tillich and possibly Barth) and hopeful (John Robinson's view that "universal salvation is the most consistent, just and authentic inference to be drawn from the Christian scriptures, but....the population of heaven is ultimately determined by God alone"). Apparently the key texts for universalists are Romans 5:18, Romans 11:32, 1 Cor 15:22 and Philippians 2:10, never mind the fact that their view utterly denies most of the rest of the bible (Matt 7:13,14; John 3:36; John 14:6; Acts 4:12 et passim) and makes a nonsense of the concept of hell altogether, not to mention mocking the great sacrifice of our Saviour at Calvary. The report rejects universalism as lacking "biblical warrant" and denigrating "the place of faith in salvation". It also "trivialises sin by underplaying divine punish-ment...compromises morality by denying that good and evil choices make any ultimate difference, and... betrays the missionary mandate of Christ by making evangelism and conversion incidental to salvation". ACUTE say instead that "we believe that hell does exist, and that it is occupied to some degree", a skilful con-struction which outlaws universalism whilst allowing perhaps for both annihilationism and traditionalism. Also, their conclusion to this section may be too broad: "While rejecting universalism as a theological position, we would nevertheless emphasise that God's mercy might extend further than we can legitimately contemplate. As Wright insists, `it is no part of Christian duty to set bounds to God's grace, to dictate whom He may bring to faith and whom He may not'...but however widely God's salvation extends, it is a salvation which comes by grace through faith, rather than by right". Hmmmm. This smacks to me a little of the `Don't put God in a box' or `God is not a book' thinking of pluralists and liberals who act as if doubt and vague latitude were virtues and certainly and the narrow path vices, and who present themselves as `compassionate' or `non-judgemental' by refusing to warn the unbeliever of his doom. "It's for God to judge," they say. Well yes it is, but is for us to warn and to preach, based on the very comprehensive revelation that God has granted us. Notwithstanding Wright's marvellous fine words, God has set a limit to His own grace, and offered it to us only in the person of His Son (Rom 5:17). Do ACUTE and Wright think it is kind to deny people the opportunity to know this very specific, self-limited grace of God in Christ because of some `noble' principle of magnanimity? Actually, from the rest of the text I don't think this is what ACUTE is actually suggesting, but it's dangerous territory.

• Atheistic annihilationism. When you're dead, you're dead. That's it. No biblical support at all, of course.
  
• Reincarnation. Eastern mystical view that the soul transmigrates from body to body until eventually
  purifying its karma and becoming one with the cosmos in a state of nothingness (nirvana). No biblical support at all.
  
• Total universalism. Everybody saved whatever they do or believe. No biblical support.
  
• Pluralistic universalism. Many or most people saved through sincere devotion to their own religion or philosophy—outside Christ. No biblical support.
  
• Hopeful universalism. Everyone will get saved, hopefully, but nobody really knows except God. What I'd call falsely modest vagueness and cruel optimism. Only biblical support are verses like 1 Tim 2:4 and 2 Peter 3:9, but these express God's reluctance to condemn, where many more others articulate, nevertheless, the inevitability of His just wrath against evildoers (Isaiah 66:15,16; Mark 16:16; John 3:36).
  
• Inclusivist universalism. Many will be saved and only through the grace of God in Christ Jesus. But some of these will be saved `unknowingly'. This view certainly improves the position of those who have never heard the gospel, the mentally retarded and infants. It allows for the `pagan saint', the `one who would have turned to Jesus if he'd had the chance'. It could be argued that all those BC are in this category, though I'd counter that by passages such as Hebrews 11 which clearly show that "these were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised" (vs. 39). Moses actually "regarded disgrace for the sake of Christ as of greater value than the treasures of Egypt, because he was looking ahead to his reward" (26). These OT chappies believed in the coming Messiah, even though they didn't know His Name or properly envisage the cross. This is a real, knowing faith, even if it is a little undefined. But let's not forget that we too "see through a glass, darkly" (1 Cor 13:12). Perhaps a 2001 AD pagan may be searching upward for God and looking forward to a Redeemer to save him by His grace, like Job (chapter 16), though unlike Job he should be looking behind him to 33AD. And it is OUR JOB as Christian witnesses to point him in the right direction and make sure that such a pagan can knowingly make a decision for Jesus. Therefore, insofar as the inclusivists stick to `salvation by grace through faith in Christ alone' I'd see them as Biblical, but if they think that a pagan may `sincerely' follow his religion of works and yet be saved by Christ despite himself, this view is subject to all the strongcondemnation laid upon the previous positions.
  
• Christian annihilationism and Conditional Immortality. The two are really only distinct in that the first considers that God deprives or confiscates the innate immortality of the soul by destroying it in hell, and the second argues that God only confers immortality on the souls whoaccept Christ, and that souls are not inherently immortal. In other words, if souls are immortal, you get made mortal and destroyed; if they are mortal, you are not granted immortality. Both positions, however (and this is the central argument of the report) contend against the traditional perspective outlined below. They maintain that the impenitent are extinguished "straight after they have been resurrected and judged, or after a time of punishment in hell following judgment" (p73). There is no question of those outside of Christ escaping judgment; the question is whether it is conscious torment, and if so whether it is everlasting. Conditionalists go back to Justin Martyr (1st C AD) who portrayed in his Apology "an apocalyptic destruction of the whole cosmos, in order that evil angels, demons and men may no longer exist". Other early authorities are adduced, and the history of the EA's basis of faith provides an interesting excursion, as in 1970 direct reference to eternal punishment was dropped, leaving merely "God's wrath and condemnation" and "the eternal consequences of sin". Encouragingly, one of the recommendations of this ACUTE report is that "the inclusion of [a clause devoted to general resurrection, final judgment and heaven and hell] might be helpful" but they see this as "a means of clarifying what we take to be an implicit openness to conditionalism in the present wording of the Basis". Stott's infamous 1988 dialogue with David Edwards is explored, and in it "finally declared himself to be tentative about whether it should replace the traditional view". The nitty gritty of the conditionalist position is dealt with in the next two chapters. My verdict personally is that is has more biblical weight than I'd first assumed (notably hinging on the word `destruction') but that it is fundamentally misguided and borne out of a desire to conform a doctrine of hell to our human preconceptions about a `merciful' God who `couldn't possible do such a thing as to punish people forever'. Misguided certainly and dangerous very probably.
  
• Eternal separation from God/ eternal conscious spiritual torment. This view or views argue that the hell language in scripture is all symbolic, but that nevertheless the separation is a very real one, especially on a relational level—"a privation from the love of God rather than merely [an] endless torture or distinction". CS Lewis and Alec Motyer are among those who hold this view and I find it to be biblical for the most part, but Dives' experience in Luke 16 seems as mechanical as it is relational (i.e. he is suffering the torment of fire as much as the torment of separation), and the language of hellfire is surely not accidental or incidental. There has to be an underlying reality which is represented by the images and vocabulary, repeated so often as it is.
  
• Eternal conscious physical and spiritual torment. This is, as the conclusion of the report freely acknowledges, "the one most widely attested by the church in its historic formulation of doctrine and in its understanding of scripture. We also recognise that it represents the classic, mainstream evangelical position." It is supported very widely in scripture: the undying worm and endless fire of Isaiah 66:24 and Mark 9:48; the parallel of eternal punishment with eternal life in Matt 25:46 (a crucial verse virtually impossible to `get round'), the ever-rising smoke and unending restlessness of the beast-worshippers in Rev 14:11 and the eternal torment of the lake of fire in Rev 20:10. Prominent advocates today include Jim Packer, David Pawson, John Blanchard and Don Carson. I must confess I could not see any possible way these Scriptures could be interpreted differently or `explained away' by other more obvious texts. I could only believe that conditionalists were grasping at straws and bending them! I still hold to this traditional position and radically disagree with the conditionalist view, but this book presents their case in the most impressive and biblical way
  possible, as you will now see, I hope...

Final thoughts

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Appeared in Issue 14 September 2001
"...contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints" -- Jude v3