Re-interpreting Hell?--Hell Series

            Words can be slippery things, and its not always easy to get a grip on what someone may be trying to communicate. I’m sure we’ve all been shocked at times when people have totally misunderstood what we were trying to say. We were trying to communicate one thing, and somehow a totally different message came through!

Words have to be interpreted if we’re going to understand them correctly. That is true of spoken words and written words, which means this principle is true for the Bible as well. The Bible has to be interpreted if we’re going to understand it correctly, and during the last couple of centuries in particular, some people have argued that Christianity has misinterpreted what the Bible has to say about Hell. They would say that the traditional picture of Hell as being a place of everlasting punishment for those who reject God is actually based on a misunderstanding of the Bible.

Today, we’re going to take a look at two alternatives that have been offered in place of the traditional Christian understanding of Hell. Some of the words and ideas that you’ll hear about today may be new to you, but they are more popular than you might think. Last week, I mentioned a pastor named Rob Bell who wrote a book in 2011 that endorsed some of the ideas we’re about to discuss. His book became a best-seller, so if you haven’t heard about some of these ideas before, chances are that you will sooner rather than later. Sadly, however, I must say that these ideas do not give us an accurate interpretation of Scripture, and thus we must not embrace them.

So what are these alternative interpretations?

1. ANNIHILATIONISM

            Now that’s a big, fancy word that just stands for the belief that those who reject God will go into Hell for a period of time, but then they will cease to exist. They will not remain in Hell forever; they will be annihilated, which is where the big, fancy label for this idea comes from.

            So where has this idea come from? Well, those who hold this idea say that the biblical picture of Hell as a fiery place has been misunderstood. They say that since fire consumes and destroys things, it is illogical to think of something existing forever in a fiery place. They also point out that many Bible verses speak of “destruction” for those who reject God. For example, we can think of the well-known words from the Sermon on the Mount: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many (Matthew 7:13).” Or we can think of statements from John the Baptist like this one: “…he who is coming after me is mightier than I…His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire (Matthew 3:11-12).”

            We have also read about Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the weeds over the last few weeks. Jesus said that the weeds represent “the sons of the evil one” and that they will be thrown into the fiery furnace” (Matthew 13:38-42). Now, we all know what happens when you throw weeds into a fire. If you look into the fire after just a few minutes, you won’t see the weeds there anymore. Because of observations like that, annihilationists say its illogical to think of a person living forever in a fiery place.

            Annihilationists also emphasize verses that talk about God’s final victory over all things, and they interpret those verses to mean that those who reject God must no longer exist when God achieves His final victory. For example, Philippians 2:10-11 says in the New American Standard, “at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” They would read those verses and say, “Well, if every knee is going to bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, then that must mean that those who reject God will no longer exist at that point because people in Hell wouldn’t bow the knee to God or confess that Jesus is Lord.”

            Another example like this would be 1 Corinthians 15:28, which says, “When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all.” Annihilationists would have the same response to this verse—“How can all things be subjected to God if there are people in Hell who have never accepted Him?” And so, they would say that such people must no longer exist at that point in time.

            Let’s think, now, about these two claims. First—the claim that the fire of Hell will put the people there out of existence. Though annihilationists would say the same thing about me, I think their claim misunderstands the imagery of fire. Fire doesn’t actually put anything out of existence; it simply breaks down the structure and order of things. If a house burns down, for example, the structure of the house is lost, but the atoms that make up the wood and the carpet and the drywall don’t cease to exist—they simply become smoke and ashes.

            Now someone might say, “Come on, Tim. People in Bible times didn’t know about atoms! They just knew that if you threw weeds in a fire, you had no more weeds!” Well, they may not have known about atoms, but they certainly knew about ashes, and they were also well aware of using fire to refine metals, so they certainly could have known that fire simply breaks down the structure of things.

            Most importantly, we have plain statements in Scripture—like Matthew 25:46—that those who reject God are sentenced to eternal punishment in the same way that those who accept God are given eternal life.

            Now what about those verses that describe God’s final victory? Can God really have “all things in subjection to Him” if there are people in Hell who don’t worship Him? Well, if we want to understand the details of God’s ultimate victory, we need to allow the Bible to tell us what those details are. Those details are most clearly expressed in precisely the place you would expect to find them—at the end of the Bible, in the final chapters of the book of Revelation.

            In chapters 19-21 of Revelation, we read about the devil being cast into the lake of fire, where he will be tormented day and night forever and ever, according to Revelation 20:10. We also read about those whose names are not written in the book of life meeting the same fate. These chapters also tell us about Christ’s future kingdom on Earth and our eternal home with God in the New Heaven and New Earth, so if we are going to allow the Bible to shape our understanding of God’s final victory, that means that His final victory includes an everlasting punishment for His enemies.

            I think the best understanding of God’s final victory is to say that it means there will no longer be any active rebellion against God in any corner of creation. All of His enemies will be subdued and sentenced to their final fate, with no opportunity to foster a rebellion ever again. God’s children, of course, will enjoy life in His presence under His reign, so everything will truly be in subjection to God.

Now, in thinking about God’s final victory, some people have come to a very different conclusion about it, and we can call that conclusion…

2. UNIVERSALISM

            Universalism is the belief that all people will eventually be saved, either by accepting Christ in this life before they die or by accepting Him after they die. Most universalists, I believe, accept the idea that some people will go to Hell, but it is seen as a place of correction that will eventually lead all people to accept Christ. This interpretation is based on the idea that people will continue to have the opportunity to accept Christ after they die, and that God’s discipline will lead all people to do so, even if they continue to resist for a while.

            So how do universalists draw their belief from Scripture? First, they appeal to some verses which they interpret to say that people will have a “second chance” to accept Christ after death. We’ll look at one of those verses in just a moment.

Second, they point to clear statements in Scripture which declare that God desires all people to be saved, such as 1 Timothy 2:4, which says God “desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” So, if God desires that it will happen, then it must be that it will happen.

Third, they also point to the “final victory” passages and interpret them to say that all people will eventually be saved. “After all,” they would say, “if every knee is going to bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord, then that must mean all people will be saved at that point.” As you can see, they reach a very different conclusion than annihilationists do from the same passages.

            What are we to make of these interpretations? First, let’s consider a verse which they claim would refer to a “second chance” to accept Christ. For the sake of time, I’m only going to mention the verse that has the best chance of supporting their claim, though I don’t believe it does. That verse is 1 Peter 4:6, which the English Standard Version translates like this: “For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.”

            At first glance, that may sound like it is referring to people hearing the gospel after they have died, but this is when the Bible study practice of comparing multiple translations becomes very helpful. Notice how another well-known translation—the NIV—translates the first phrase: “for this is the reason the gospel was preached even to those who are now dead.” That translation emphasizes something very important—the tense of the first verb. It is in the past tense—“the gospel was preached.” Thus, the verse could be saying that these people heard the gospel in the past before they had died—and I think that’s exactly what the verse is saying.

            It is also very important to note that there is no mention of a “second chance” in the passage where it would most logically be found, which is the description of the final judgment of mankind in Revelation 20. Let’s read this important passage [READ Rev. 20:12-15; p. 672]. This passage says nothing about a second chance being offered at that moment, and it gives us no hint that a second chance will ever be offered again. Rather, it seems that the Bible sums up the reality very succinctly in Hebrews 9:27, which says, “it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment.”

            Now what about God’s desire that all people would be saved? It is certainly true that God desires for all people to be saved, but it is also very clear from the record of Scripture that God does not enforce everything that He desires. Surely God desired that Adam and Eve would obey Him, but He did not enforce that. He created them with a will and allowed them to choose. Surely God desires that we would always obey Him, but He doesn’t enforce that, either. We have a will, too, and He allows us to make choices. If we were to say that God enforces everything He desires, then we would have to say that everything that happens is something that God desired to happen, including all acts of evil, and that conclusion does not line up with Scripture.

            Moreover, the Bible does not give us reason to think that all people would surely repent eventually once they realize that they are under the judgment of God. In fact, a chapter like Revelation 16 gives us the opposite impression Let’s read verses 8-11 [READ Rev. 16:8-11; 669]. Notice that these people clearly understood that God was behind these plagues, yet they did not repent. Even if we gave them an eternity to repent, there is no guarantee that they ever would.

            Finally, we should remember that the passages which speak of God’s final victory over all things do not require us to conclude that all people will eventually repent and accept Christ. The closing chapters of Scripture give us the real picture—God will have the victory over all who oppose Him, but not all people will gladly welcome that victory. Every man and woman will receive one of two fates, according to Matthew 25:46—either eternal punishment, or eternal life.

            “But God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).” You can know today that you have eternal life if you will understand your need for it and repent of your sins to God, and receive the gift of forgiveness that He offers to you through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You need not fear eternal punishment ever again, for Jesus said, “whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life (John 5:24).”