The Disappearance of Hell

ligonier.org ^ | 2/1/14 | John MacArthur

[SoFloFreeper]

According to recent polls, some 81 percent of adult Americans believe in heaven, and fully 80 percent expect to go there when they die. By comparison, about 61 percent believe in hell, but less than 1 percent think it’s likely they will go there. In other words, a slight majority of Americans still believe hell exists, but genuine fear of hell is almost nonexistent.

Even the most conservative evangelicals don’t seem to take hell very seriously anymore. For decades, many evangelicals have downplayed inconvenient biblical truths, neglecting any theme that seems to require somber reflection. Doctrines such as human depravity, divine wrath, the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and the reality of eternal judgment have disappeared from the evangelical message.

The trend has not escaped everyone’s attention. Thirty years ago, for example, Martin Marty, religious historian, professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and critic of all things evangelical, delivered the Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality at Harvard Divinity School. The title of his message was “Hell Disappeared. No One Noticed.” Marty’s research had failed to turn up a single scholarly article dealing with the subject of hell in any significant theological journal over the previous century. Citing the dearth of attention being given to so large a topic, Marty suggested that if evangelicals really took seriously what Scripture says about eternal punishment, someone with a voice should notice.

Almost no one did. Eighteen years later, The Los Angeles Times featured a front-page article titled “Hold the Fire and Brimstone,” pointing out that many style-conscious evangelical church leaders were purposely omitting the theme of divine retribution:

In churches across America, hell is being frozen out as clergy find themselves increasingly hesitant to sermonize on … a story line that no longer resonates with churchgoers. [According to] Harvey Cox Jr., an eminent author, religious historian and professor at the Harvard Divinity School, “You can go to a whole lot of churches week after week, and you’d be startled even to hear a mention of hell.”

Hell’s fall from fashion indicates how key portions of Christian theology have been influenced by a secular society that stresses individualism over authority and the human psyche over moral absolutes. The rise of psychology, the philosophy of existentialism, and the consumer culture have all dumped buckets of water on hell.

The article profiled an evangelical pastor who said he believes in hell, but (according to the Times) “you’d never know it listening to him preach… . He never mentions the topic; his flock shows little interest in it.” Asked why the doctrine of hell has gone missing, this pastor replied, “It isn’t sexy enough anymore.”

The article also quoted a well-known seminary professor who more or less agreed. Hell, he said, is “just too negative… . Churches are under enormous pressure to be consumer-oriented. Churches today feel the need to be appealing rather than demanding.”

The article closed with a quote from Martin Marty, almost two decades after his famous lecture on the subject. He agreed that market-driven concerns are the main reason hell is being expunged from the evangelical message:

Once pop evangelism went into market analysis, hell was just dropped. When churches go door to door and conduct a market analysis … they hear, “I want better parking spaces. I want guitars at services. I want to have my car greased while I’m in church.”

Years of indifference finally paved the way for open hostility. In the first decade of the new millennium, certain prominent figures in the “emergent church” declared war on the biblical doctrine of hell. The groundswell seemed to crest a couple of years ago with the publication of Rob Bell’s bestselling book Love Wins. Bell argued that it’s absurd to think a loving God would ever damn anyone to eternal punishment. He portrayed God’s love as a force that clashes with and ultimately eliminates the demands of justice. In the storyline Bell envisions, God requires no payment or punishment for sin. The divine response to evil is always remedial, never punitive. Furthermore, the wages of sin are mild, temporary, and reserved only for grossly malevolent villains—mass murderers, child rapists, tyrants who engineer genocide, and (one supposes) Christians who tell unbelievers they should fear God. When it’s all over, everyone will be together in paradise.

In such a system, God’s righteousness is compromised, repentance is optional, atonement is unnecessary, and the truth of God’s Word is nullified. In other words, nothing of biblical Christianity is left. Once anyone sets out to tone down or tame the hard truths of Scripture, that’s where the process inevitably leads.

Only a few leading voices in the evangelical movement have lobbied boldly for a more orthodox approach to the doctrine of hell. They seem to be outnumbered by those who think the disappearance of hell is a positive development.

Some have proposed alternative ways to speak of sin and judgment in gentler, toned-down, and more refined and socially acceptable terminology than Scripture uses. Sin is deemed wrong not because it is an offense against the righteousness of God, but because of the hurt it causes others. Hell is described not as a place of eternal punishment but simply as a realm apart from God. In the reimagined eschatology of stylish evangelicals, no one is ever “sent” to hell; sinners actually choose to spend eternity apart from God—and the “hell” they suffer is merely an abundance of what they loved and desired the most. Hell is necessary only because God is reluctant to overrule anyone’s free will. Therefore, with a more or less benign acquiescence, He ultimately defers to the sinner’s choice. God’s righteous indignation has no meaningful place in such a scenario.

It is a serious mistake to imagine that we improve Scripture or enhance its effectiveness by blunting its sharp edges. Scripture is a sword, not a cotton swab, and it needs to be fully unsheathed before it can be put to its intended use. “The word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Heb. 4:12). The gospel is supposed to be an affront to fleshly pride, offensive to human sensibilities, foolishness in the eyes of worldly wisdom, and contrary to all carnal judgments.

No Christian teaching exemplifies those characteristics more powerfully than the doctrine of hell. It is an appalling truth. We rightly recoil at the thought of it. The doctrine of hell thus stands as a warning and a reminder of what a loathsome reality sin is. No reasonable or godly person delights in the reality of eternal damnation. God Himself says, “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezek. 33:11).

Yet the severity of God’s wrath and the woes of hell are prominent in Scripture. The New Testament speaks more vividly and more frequently about hell than the Old Testament does. In fact, Jesus Himself had more to say about the subject than any other prophet or biblical writer. Far from smoothing over the difficulties that seem to embarrass so many evangelicals today, Jesus said:

Do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him! (Luke 12:4–5)

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into the hell of fire. (Matt. 18:8–9)

We do no one any favors by downplaying the truth of God’s wrath or neglecting to mention the severity of His judgment. We certainly don’t eliminate the threat of hell by refusing to speak or think of it. If we truly believe what the Bible teaches about the eternal fate of unbelievers, it is in no sense “loving” to remain silent and refuse to sound the appropriate alarm.

What, after all, is the good news we proclaim in the gospel? It is not an announcement that no one really needs to fear God or fret about the possibility of hell. As a matter of fact, there would be no glad tidings at all if God merely intended to capitulate to the stubborn will of man and forgo the demands of His perfect righteousness.

The good news is even better than most believers understand: God made a way for His righteousness and His love to be fully reconciled. In His incarnation, Christ fulfilled all righteousness (satisfying, not nullifying, the demands of His law). In His death on the cross, He paid the price of His people’s sin in full (assuring the triumph of perfect justice). And in His resurrection from the dead, He put a powerful exclamation mark on His own perfect, finished work of atonement (thus sealing the promise of justification forever for those who trust Him as Lord and Savior).

That is the message we must declare to a worldly culture utterly lacking any real fear of God. We cannot do it faithfully or effectively if from the very outset we have omitted the harsh truth Scripture declares about “the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty” (Rev. 19:15).

[Elsie]

No disappearance of Hell we are in it.

Not me...

[Elsie]

Good!

[Elsie]

Or merely a Devil’s Advocate without a sarc tag...

[Elsie]

Either/or?

No third choice?

[mitch5501]

"...but those of us who have put our faith in Christ alone will be ruling with Him during that thousand years."

"Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not." (Malachi 3:16-18)

"And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." (Jude 14,15)

[Iscool]

I’m a Christian. Hell is a myth.

If Hell is a myth, so is Heaven as well as Christianity...

[Manic_Episode]

I like those TV ads with the guy sitting at a table with kids asking them questions.

"What's better, big or little?" and the kids all yell "BIG!"

I'd like to see the guy ask the kids "What's better, heaven or hell?"

All the kids would yell "HEAVEN!" of course.

Sadly once the kids grow up into jaded atheists they would say "Hell so I can party with all my friends. Who wants to sit on clouds strumming a harp?"

Kids are smarter than atheists and JW's.

[CynicalBear]

Amen and Amen! What a glorious day that will be!

[Manic_Episode]

Are you a JW? If so you are not a Christian and hell is indeed real.

[Elsie]

Regarding the devil, the ridiculous images used to portray him help achieve the same purpose - who could believe in someone who is all red, has horns and a long tail?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgcWfVvT_UM

[Elsie]

We interpret scripture as it was intended to be understood.

2 Corinthians 1:13-14

13. For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that,
14. as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus.

[Elsie]

It’s an old and common misunderstanding that Christ spent three days in Hell. I know why many believe that, but it’s simply incorrect.

 

Acts Chapter 2 VERY early KJV

 

22 Yee men of Israel, heare these words, Iesus of Nazareth, a man approued of God among you, by miracles, wonders, and signes, which God did by him in the midst of you, as yee your selues also know:

 

23 Him, being deliuered by the determinate counsell and foreknowledge of God, yee haue taken, and by wicked hands, haue crucified, and slaine:

 

24 Whom God hath raised vp, hauing loosed the paines of death: because it was not possible that hee should be holden of it.

 

25 For Dauid speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord alwayes before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moued.25

 

26 Therefore did my heart reioyce, and my tongue was glad: Moreouer also, my flesh shall rest in hope,

 

27 Because thou wilt not leaue my soule in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy one to see corruption.

 

28 Thou hast made knowen to mee the wayes of life, thou shalt make mee full of ioy with thy countenance.

 

29 Men and brethren, let me freely speake vnto you of the Patriarch Dauid, that he is both dead & buried, and his sepulchre is with vs vnto this day:29

 

30 Therefore being a Prophet, and knowing that God had sworne with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loines, according to the flesh, hee would raise vp Christ, to sit on his throne:30

 

31 He seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soule was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.31

[Elsie]

Then no one dies. And Satan was correct.

Did GOD really say...
--Genesis 3

---

John 3:18 Believe it or don't: your choice...

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

[editor-surveyor]

You are at war with the word of God.

Matthew 5 says that Torah will remain in force until the very end of space and time. The New Heaven and new Earth will be the end of Torah.

Don't tell us that the word says anything but what it says. Not one word in that entire chapter allows the slightest deviance from his Torah.

Yeshua has not fulfilled the law, he has fulfilled the spring feasts. He will continue to fulfill the Fall feasts beginning with the last Trump at Yom Teruah. There is much remaining to fulfill.

We will put on righteousness in the manner he prescribed, not by your decree. He has prescribed his Torah for our righteousness; that is his righteousness for us.

You continue to rip verses out of context to deflect the clear meaning in the chapters. Philippians is speaking of how by faith we follow Torah, that is what he means by righteousness, the word has meaning, and its not for the pleasure of Dispy scoffers.

Yeshua has demanded that we follow his commandments; that is the essence of Believing in Him. If you love him you will follow his commandments.

John 14:

[21] He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.
[22] Judas saith unto him, not Iscariot, Lord, how is it that thou wilt manifest thyself unto us, and not unto the world?
[23] Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.
[24] He that loveth me not keepeth not my sayings: and the word which ye hear is not mine, but the Father's which sent me.

John 15:

[9] As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.
[10] If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
[11] These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

1John 5:

[1] Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat loveth him also that is begotten of him.
[2] By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.

[3] For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

2John 1:

[5] And now I beseech thee, lady, not as though I wrote a new commandment unto thee, but that which we had from the beginning, that we love one another.
[6] And this is love, that we walk after his commandments. This is the commandment, That, as ye have heard from the beginning, ye should walk in it.

There is no part of the New Testament that fails to demand that we keep his commandments.

You have completely misunderstood what work grace is to do for us - Completely!

.And you should apologize to the men of God that you have vilified in these replies. They are only attempting to lead you to him.

.

[Iscool]

[12] For as many as have sinned without law shall also perish without law: and as many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law;

[13] (For not the hearers of the law are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.

Act_13:39 And by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses.

Rom_3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Rom_3:24 Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:

Rom_3:28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

Rom_4:2 For if Abraham were justified by works, he hath whereof to glory; but not before God.

Rom_5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

Rom_5:9 Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.

Gal_2:16 Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Gal_3:24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

Gal_5:4 Christ is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified by the law; ye are fallen from grace.

No Torah...No Law...We are covered under the dispensation of the gospel of the grace of God...

Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
Eph 2:9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.

[Elsie]

Your record is expunged. It is as if He never made you.

unsaved people end up in the Lake of Fire

And are consumed.

Where DO you come UP with this stuff?

[Elsie]

Not a member of that church but I agree with their doctrine on Hell.

Why?

[editor-surveyor]

See post 194, it fully covers your misunderstanding of his expectations of us.

[editor-surveyor]

Cuz its comfey?

[Elsie]

G-D gave the devil a choice between Texas and Hell. He chose Hell, we got Texas.

Cowboy Poetry

by Bill Jones

 

 

 

Jake, the rancher, went one day
to fix a distant fence.
The wind was cold and gusty
and the clouds rolled gray and dense.

As he pounded the last staples in
and gathered tools to go,
The temperature had fallen,
the wind and snow began to blow.

When he finally reached his pickup,
he felt a heavy heart.
From the sound of that ignition,
he knew it wouldn't start.

So Jake did what most of us
would do if we had been there.
He humbly bowed his balding head
and sent aloft a prayer.

As he turned the key for the last time,
he softly cursed his luck.
They found him three days later,
frozen stiff in that old truck.

Now Jake had been around in life
and done his share of roaming.
But when he saw Heaven, he was shocked --
it looked just like Wyoming!

Of all the saints in Heaven,
his favorite was St. Peter.
(Now, this line ain't needed
but it helps with rhyme and meter)

So they set and talked a minute or two,
or maybe it was three.
Nobody was keeping' score --
in Heaven time is free.

"I've always heard," Jake said to Pete,
"that God will answer prayer,
But one time I asked for help,
well, he just plain wasn't there."

"Does God answer prayers of some,
and ignore the prayers of others?
That don't seem exactly square --
I know all men are brothers."

"Or does he randomly reply,
without good rhyme or reason?
Maybe, it's the time of day,
the weather or the season."

"Now I ain't trying to act smart,
it's just the way I feel.
And I was wondering', could you tell me --
what the heck's the deal?!"

Peter listened very patiently
and when Jake was done,
There were smiles of recognition,
and he said, "So, you're the one!!"

"That day your truck, it wouldn't start,
and you sent your prayer a flying,
You gave us all a real bad time,
with hundreds of us trying."

"A thousand angels rushed,
to check the status of your file,
But you know, Jake, we hadn't heard
from you in quite a long while."

"And though all prayers are answered,
and God ain't got no quota,
He didn't recognize your voice,
and started a truck in Minnesota."