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]

Haven’t you read in the Gospel where they then wandered around Jerusalem, visible to only the believers?

ONLY?

[Elsie]

Where did you get the idea that he would lead anyone away from his commandments?

Uh... New Testement?

[DManA]

The God I worship is wonderful. The god you worship is a beast.

[caww]

Gal. 2:21,

” I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.”

Yep, so those who live under the law are preaching another Gospel..and another Christ rather than the Christ of the Bible.

[Iscool]

Do you believe that Yeshua lied in Matthew 5? Will he not preserve his Torah until all is accomplished, unto the end of the universe? Do those that love him not keep his commandments?

It doesn't say anything about the end of the universe...

Rom 10:4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.

Jesus fulfilled the Law...He never violated a single precept of the Law...Jesus fulfilled the righteousness of the Law...

Jesus gave that righteousness to Christians, freely, as he took on our sins...

Mat. 5 has been fulfilled...

[.45 Long Colt]

Squirrel Lovers Club?

[Manic_Episode]

I worship Jesus, God Almighty Himself who came in the flesh.

He loves me so He warned me that the way to avoid hell was to be washed in His blood.

Jesus story of Lazarus dying at the rich mans gate was NOT a parable. Parables always start the same way: There was a man...there was a farmer etc. And they do not contain names.

It is a literal story with literal people with a literal hell.

If you are a Jehovahs Witness as I suspect you will disagree that Jesus is Almighty God Himself.

[Elsie]

Jesus descended into Sheol, to the bosom of Abraham (non-smoking section) and took the righteous souls who were there with Him to heaven (Eph. 4:8).

Uh...

I don't think it says this:

King James Version (KJV)

8 Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men.

 

Psalm 68:18   
Thou hast ascended on high, thou hast led captivity captive: thou hast received gifts for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the LORD God might dwell among them.

 

===================================================

 

New International Version (NIV)

8 This is why it says:

“When he ascended on high,
    he took many captives
    and gave gifts to his people.”

 

Psalm 68:18
When you ascended on high, you took many captives; you received gifts from people, even from the rebellious-- that you, LORD God, might dwell there.

 

 

 

 

[stanne]

I expect blasphemy like that on this often anticatholic site. Your profile quotes St. Paul in his reading to the Corinthians. You might want to check out what he said about the Blessed Mother:

1 Cor 15: 26

[CynicalBear]

>> Yeshua has not fulfilled the law, he has fulfilled the spring feasts.<<

Matthew 5:17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

>> We will put on righteousness in the manner he prescribed<<

Matthew 1:10 so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; 11 having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

Philippians 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

>> And you should apologize to the men of God that you have vilified in these replies.<<

Here’s some information on those “men of god” as you call them for anyone who wants to understand what “men” you are talking about. They are nothing but fakes, frauds, and emissaries of Satan.

All about Michael Rood and the cult of “The Way”

You probably also use the corrupted Lamsa Bible also right?

[Errant]

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.

Hell in this instance, like most uses in scripture means simply the tomb/grave, totally different than what it means to us today. This is were much confusion originates.

[Elsie]

It appears that this thread has become a self fulfilling prophecy of it's title!

[DManA]

You you slander God. God would not do this to someone he loved.

[Elsie]

Kids are smarter than atheists and JW's.

 

If you have cable TV, there won’t be much worthwhile on to watch.

 

 

 

 

If there isn’t much on to watch, you will answer your door whenever someone rings.

 

 

 

 

If you open your door, you will see mormons.

 

 

 

 

If you talk to mormons, they will trick you into “praying about whether something is true”.

 

 

 

 

If you rely on your feelings, you may become a mormon.

 

 

 

 

If you become a mormon, you will have to wear magic underwear!

 

 

 

 

If you wear magic underwear, people will immediately label you as a cultist.

DON’T be a cultist!
Get DirectTV.

[Elsie]

Matthew 5 says that Torah will remain in force until the very end of space and time.

And torah is ONLY for the Jews.

[CynicalBear]

See the link on my post 230 to find all about where that teaching comes from.

[Elsie]

I think you nailed it.

[Errant]

MAke sure as many names as you can get written there; especially your own!

I try! :)

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/3120992/posts

[Elsie]

Whatever the text SAYS.

[steve86]

Are you one of those people who, like Quix, believes that Fatima was a UFO invasion?