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What people are saying about …

Erasing Hell

“Erasing Hell is an extraordinarily important book. Francis Chan

speaks with trembling and compassion. He recognizes this debate

is about God, His nature, and His authority. At stake is whether or

not we will trust Him. Francis lays his heart on the table; I was not

only informed, but moved. It’s rare that a book mixes straight-

from-the-heart talk with diligent citation of Scripture. Erasing Hell

is highly readable yet goes deep and into detail exactly when it

needs to. Preston Sprinkle’s research and Francis Chan’s

presentation are a dynamic combination. This remarkable book

embraces not what, in pride, we want to believe, but what, in

humility, we must believe. M y heartfelt thanks to Francis Chan for

taking us to God’s Word in a Christlike spirit of grace and truth.

And for calling on us not to apologize for God, but to apologize to

God for presuming to be wiser and more loving than our Savior.”

Randy Alcorn, author of Heaven and If God Is

Good

“It’s time for the H word. A lot of people go through hell on earth,

but what if there is also a hell after earth? Hell’s stock has fallen

off lately from lack of public confidence, but how can thousands,

perhaps millions, reject hell as a myth and yet still believe in

heaven and cherish fond hopes of going there? Surely if we hate

suffering, God must hate it worse and could never have founded an

institution as horrible as described in Dante’s Inferno. But the

same Jesus who gave heaven a five-star rating also described an

otherworldly chamber of horrors. Who goes there and why? And

for how long? In Erasing Hell, my good friend Francis Chan takes

a close look at some tough, frightening questions … and his

answers may honestly surprise you!”

Joni Eareckson Tada, Joni and Friends

International Disability Center

“Everyone needs to read Erasing Hell by Francis Chan and

Preston Sprinkle. Chan and Sprinkle accurately and clearly reflect

the biblical teaching on heaven, hell, and eternal destiny. They

provide a timely reminder that we don’t define God, but He reveals

Himself to us in the pages of Scripture.”

Tremper Longman, Robert H. Gundry Professor

of Biblical Studies at Westmont College and author

of Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind

“Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle raise the questions we all have

about this very critical topic and respond with biblical integrity

and a commitment to truth, as well as incredible compassion for

p eop le. Erasing Hell is an extremely important and much-needed

book.”

Dan Kimball, pastor and author of They Like Jesus

but Not the Church

“Francis holds the fine line between committed biblical faithfulness

and a deep compassion for people and refuses to create a false

dichotomy between the two. He feels the weight and horror of the

reality of hell and yet avoids the error of lapsing into mere

humanism, all the while providing a well-reasoned defense for the

view of Scripture on the subject. I am so thankful for this book, as

will you be.”

Britt Merrick, pastor of Reality Santa Barbara

“Recent works by evangelicals on the postmortem future(s) of

humanity have raised important questions and brought some

sobering and uncomfortable issues to the fore. Chan and Sprinkle

provide a remarkable service to the church by engaging these issues

with courage, clarity, and grace. This book is a model of careful

biblical scholarship, providing fresh light from the Jewish context

of the New Testament. They also write as pastors seeking to

provide wisdom for ministry, enabling the people of God to

embody the love of God for the world.”

Timothy Gombis, associate professor of New

Testament at Grand Rapids Theological Seminary

Licensed to christian jelbring on 2012-04-06

ERASING HELL

P ublished by David C Cook

4050 Lee Vance View

Colorado Springs, CO 80918 U.S.A.

David C Cook Distribution Canada

55 Woodslee Avenue, P aris, Ontario, Canada N3L 3E5

David C Cook U.K., Kingsway Communications

Eastbourne, East Sussex BN23 6NT, England

David C Cook and the graphic circle C logo

are registered trademarks of Cook Communications Ministries.

All rights reserved. Except for brief excerpts for review purposes,

no part of this book may be reproduced or used in any form

without written permission from the publisher.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible,

English Standard Version. Copyright © 2000; 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a

division of Good News P ublishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible,

© Copyright 1960, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International

Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica, Inc™ . Used by

permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com.

Scripture marked TNIV taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’ S NEW

INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by Biblica®. Used by

permission of Biblica®. All rights reserved worldwide.

The author has added italics to Scripture and quotations for emphasis.

LCCN 2011929504

ISBN 978-0-7814-0725-0

eISBN 978-0-7814-0753-3

© 2011 Francis Chan and P reston Sprinkle

P ublished in association with the literary agency of

D.C. Jacobson & Associates LLC, an Author Management Company

www.dcjacobson.com

The Team: Don P ape, Alex Field, Amy Konyndyk, Nick Lee, Caitlyn York, Renada

Arens, Karen Athen

Cover Design: Jim Elliston, The Regime

First Edition 2011

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1: Does Everyone Go to Heaven?

Chapter 2: Has Hel Changed? Or Have W e?

Chapter 3: W hat Jesus Actual y Said about Hel

Chapter 4: W hat Jesus’ Fol owers Said about Hel

Chapter 5: W hat Does This Have to Do with Me?

Chapter 6: “W hat If God …?”

Chapter 7: Don’t Be Overwhelmed

Appendix: Frequently Asked Questions

Bibliography

About the Author

About the Coauthor

Sample Chapter from Forgotten God

Licensed to christian jelbring on 2012-04-06

Preface

I wrote this book with my friend Preston. I recruited his help

because he can interact with issues at a deeper level than I can. His

expertise in language, history, and the New Testament has helped

tremendously in our effort to be thorough and precise. Preston

studied first-century Judaism for his doctorate and has published

many works in this area. We thought it would be a good

partnership because we have different gifts but similar convictions.

As we wrote the book, we decided to write it with one voice

(Francis’s). Truth be told, the majority of research was done by

Preston.

While Preston and I wrote this book, it could not have been

completed without the meticulous help of many in our community.

First and foremost, M ark Beuving contributed many hours to

editing, correcting, and rewriting sections with precision and care.

Also, many staff at Eternity Bible College and Cornerstone Church

in Simi Valley set aside precious hours to read through early drafts.

Thank you, Joshua, Spencer, Yvonne, Todd, and M att. Your

comments were invaluable. I also solicited the help of many

scholars, who combed through the book, or portions of it, to make

sure my interpretations of Scripture were sound. These scholars

include Dr. Timothy Gombis (Grand Rapids Theological

Seminary), Dr. Tremper Longman III (Westmont College), Dr.

Joseph Dodson (Ouachita Baptist University), Dr. Simon

Gathercole (Cambridge University), and Dr. Scott Hafemann (St.

Andrews University). Although I didn’t intend this to be a

“scholarly” book, its subject matter demanded the utmost caution

in handling the biblical text. I am therefore grateful for the close

inspection it received before going to print.

However, no matter how many human filters we solicited to

purify the words of this book, it’s still fallible. Because of this, we

have included many direct quotes from Scripture. Read the

Scriptures we’ve quoted as truth directly from the mouth of God.

Pause and meditate deeply on the verses whenever they arise.

Those words are ultimately what God wants you to cherish and

embrace.

Licensed to christian jelbring on 2012-04-06

Introduction

If you are excited to read this book, you have issues.

Do you understand the weight of what we are about to

consider? We are exploring the possibility that you and I may end

up being tormented in hell. Excited would be the wrong term to use

here. Necessary would be more fitting.

For some, this discussion will open up old wounds. It certainly

does for me.

The saddest day of my life was the day I watched my

grandmother die. When that EKG monitor flatlined, I freaked out. I

absolutely lost it! According to what I knew of the Bible, she was

headed for a life of never-ending suffering. I thought I would go

crazy. I have never cried harder, and I don’t ever want to feel like

that again. Since that day, I have tried not to think about it. It has

been over twenty years.

Even as I write that paragraph, I feel sick. I would love to erase

hell from the pages of Scripture.

How about you? Have you ever struggled with hell as I have?

Do you have any parents, siblings, cousins, or friends who, based

on what you have been taught, will end up in hell? What a bone-

chilling thought. Until recently, whenever the idea of hell—and the

idea of my loved ones possibly heading there—crossed my mind, I

would brush it aside and divert my thinking to something more

pleasant. While I’ve always believed in hell with my mind, I tried

not to let the doctrine penetrate my heart.

But I reached a point where I could no longer do this. I could

no longer acknowledge hell with my lips while preventing my heart

from feeling its weight. I had to figure out if the Bible actually

taught the existence of a literal hell. How great would it be if it

didn’t? Then I would be able to embrace my grandmother again

someday.

So I decided to write a book about hell. And honestly—I’m

scared to death.

I’m scared because so much is at stake. Think about it. If I say

there is no hell, and it turns out that there is a hell, I may lead

people into the very place I convinced them did not exist! If I say

there is a hell, and I’m wrong, I may persuade people to spend

their lives frantically warning loved ones about a terrifying place

that isn’t real! When it comes to hell, we can’t afford to be wrong.

This is not one of those doctrines where you can toss in your two

cents, shrug your shoulders, and move on. Too much is at stake.

Too many people are at stake. And the Bible has too much to say.

Who Should I Believe?

Part of me doesn’t want to believe in hell. And I’ll admit that I

have a tendency to read into Scripture what I want to find—maybe

you do too. Knowing this, I’ve spent many hours fasting and

praying that God would prevent my desires from twisting

Scripture to gratify my personal preferences. And I encourage you

to do the same. Don’t believe something just because you want to,

and don’t embrace an idea just because you’ve always believed it.

Believe what is biblical. Test all your assumptions against the

precious words God gave us in the Bible.

There are many things that I believed and practiced for years,

only to change my views after further study of the Bible. I’ve

learned to be okay with saying, “I think I was off on that one.”

While this is humbling and difficult, it’s better than continuing to

believe something that is inaccurate.

For example, I was “initiated” into the American church when

people urged me to pray a prayer to “receive Christ” so I wouldn’t

burn in hell. After years of leading others down the same path, I

changed. I now speak against this idea of simply praying a prayer

as fire insurance—I just don’t see it anywhere in Scripture.

I was also taught that the Holy Spirit no longer empowers our

lives with miraculous deeds, because these “ceased” long ago. For

many years, I discouraged people from pursuing the supernatural.

After further study of Scripture, I now believe that the Spirit can

heal the incurable, accomplish the impossible, and ignite believers

to do greater works than Jesus (John 14:12). And I urge people to

believe the same.

I have distanced myself from traditional forms of “church” in

pursuit of what I believe is more biblical. I don’t believe God

wants our church life to be centered on buildings and services.

Instead, God wants our churches—whatever specific forms our

gatherings take—to be focused on active discipleship, mission, and

the pursuit of unity.

At one point, I even sold my house, quit my job, and left the

country because I didn’t want any of my comforts to hold me back

from pursuing God wholeheartedly. I wanted to follow God

wherever He led me.

Why do I tell you all this?

I’m not going to hang on to the idea of hell simply because it’s

what my tradition tells me to believe. And neither should you.

Let’s be eager to leave what is familiar for what is true. Nothing

outside of God and His truth should be sacred to us. And so it is

with hell. If hell is some primitive myth left over from conservative

tradition, then let’s set it on that dusty shelf next to other

traditional beliefs that have no basis in Scripture. But if it is true, if

the Bible does teach that there is a literal hell awaiting those who

don’t believe in Jesus, then this reality must change us. It should

certainly purge our souls of all complacency.

As we roll up our sleeves and dig into the topic of hell, it’s

important that you don’t distance what the Bible says from

reality. In other words, don’t forget that the doctrine you are

studying may be the destiny of many people. Hell should not be

studied without tearful prayer. We must weep, pray, and fast over

this issue, begging God to reveal to us through His Word the truth

about hell. Because we can’t be wrong on this one.

Let God Be God

But this book is actually much more than a book on hell. It’s a

book about embracing a God who isn’t always easy to understand,

and whose ways are far beyond us; a God whose thoughts are

much higher than our thoughts; a God who, as the sovereign

Creator and Sustainer of all things, has every right to do, as the

psalmist says, “whatever He pleases” (Ps. 115:3 NASB).

God has the right to do WHATEVER He pleases.

If I’ve learned one thing from studying hell, it’s that last line.

And whether or not you end up agreeing with everything I say

about hell, you must agree with Psalm 115:3. Because at the end of

the day, our feelings and wants and heartaches and desires are not

ultimate—only God is ultimate. God tells us plainly that His ways

and thoughts are infinitely higher than ours (Isa. 55:9). Expect

then, that Scripture will say things that don’t agree with your

natural way of thinking.

This is why we need to pray. We need to ask God to help us

think rightly about hell. Before you read this book, I ask that you

pray. Seriously. Pray. I’m the type of person who never does

what a book tells me to do, and maybe you are too. But I ask you

to make this one exception. Pray before you read this book. The

following is the gist of the prayers I prayed as I journeyed along in

the writing of this book. It’s also my prayer for you as you

wrestle with this important issue:

God, I want to know what is true. I know I have cravings that

sway and distort my ability to reason. You promise that Your Holy

Spirit will guide me into all truth. I pray that He will now. I don’t

want to be wrong. I don’t want to be deceived by others or myself.

You alone possess all truth, and I want to be on Your side. Give me

eyes to see and ears to hear. Give me courage to live and speak

what is right no matter the cost. I don’t want to believe anything

about You that is not true. Amen.

Licensed to christian jelbring on 2012-04-06

Chapter 1

Does Everyone Go to Heaven?

Does everyone go to heaven?

Based on what I hear at funerals, the answer is an

overwhelming “Yes!” How many funerals have you attended

where this was even in question?

What we need to do is get down to what the Bible says about

the matter. Questions about heaven and hell are too important to

leave to our feelings or assumptions. But before we examine the

biblical answers to these things, we have to settle an important

question.

Do you want to believe in a God who shows His power by

punishing non-Christians and who magnifies His mercy by blessing

Christians forever?

Do you want to? Be honest.

Do you want to believe in a God like this? Here’s my gut-level,

honest answer:

No.

No way. I have family and friends who reject Jesus. I do not

want to believe in a God who punishes non-Christians. Okay,

maybe He should punish extremely wicked people—that makes

some sense. But punishment in hell for seemingly good people, or

those who simply chose the wrong religion? That feels a bit harsh,

at least according to my sense of justice.

But let me ask you another question. Could you?

Could you believe in a God who decides to punish people who

don’t believe in Jesus? A God who wants to show His power by

punishing those who don’t follow His Son?

Now that’s a different question, isn’t it? You may not

recognize the difference immediately, but read them again and

you’ll see that these two questions— do you want to? versus could

you? —are actually miles apart.

The problem is that we often respond to the second question

because of our response to the first. In other words, because there

are things that we don’t want to believe about God, we therefore

decide that we can’t believe them.

Let me be more specific and personal. I want everyone to be

saved. I do. I don’t want anyone to go to hell. The fact is, I would

love for all people to stand before Christ on judgment day and have

a chance to say, “They were right all along, Jesus. You really are

the Savior. I am so sorry for not believing in You before, but I

believe now. Can I have a second chance?”

I want to believe in a God who will save everyone in the end.

But is this what God says He will do? Do the Scriptures teach

this? Despite what we may want to believe, we’ve got to figure out

what God told us to believe in His Word. That’s what this chapter

is all about. We’re going to tackle the question: Does the Bible say

that everyone will be saved in the end?

Universalism: A Brief Survey

Throughout history, some Christians have not only wanted God to

save everyone but have gone on to argue that the Bible says He

will. This view is called Universalism. 1 The most famous

proponent of Universalism was an early church leader named

Origen (ca. AD 185–254), who seemed to teach this, though his

views were very complex and not always consistent. 2 Origen’s

beliefs were later deemed heretical, 3 but this didn’t stop others from embracing the view that everyone will be saved—though

advocates were always a minority. In fact, for over 1,600 years,

hardly any major theologians argued that everyone will be saved.

This all began to change in the 1800s, when several thinkers

resurrected Origen’s beliefs and put them back on the table. Today,

there are a growing number of confessing Christians who reflect in

one way or another the views of Origen on matters of salvation and

the afterlife. Even some evangelicals, such as Thomas Talbott and

Gregory M acDonald, have argued that God will end up saving

everyone in the end. 4

M ost recently, author Rob Bell finds this view compelling.

With creativity and wit, he sets forth a similar position, though he

avoids the label Universalism. Nevertheless, Bell suggests that

every single person will embrace Jesus—if not in this life, then

certainly in the next. 5 He writes:

At the heart of this perspective is the belief that,

given enough time, everybody will turn to God and

find themselves in the joy and peace of God’s

presence. The love of God will melt every hard

heart, and even the most “depraved sinners” will

eventually give up their resistance and turn to God.6

It’s important to understand that Universalism comes in many

shapes and sizes. This is why we have to be careful about slapping

the label Universalist on people who say that everyone will end up

being saved. The term Universalist is about as specific as the term

Baptist. If you call someone a Baptist, all you’ve said is that they

don’t baptize babies—beyond this, it’s pretty much up for grabs.

In the same way, all Universalists believe that everyone will end

up being saved, but this belief is expressed in a variety of ways.

For instance, there are non-Christian Universalists. Sometimes

called Pluralists, these people believe that Jesus is one of many

ways to salvation. Pluralists believe that all religions present

equally valid ways of salvation—Christianity is simply one among

many.

Then there are Christian Universalists, some of whom call

themselves hopeful Universalists. They believe that Christ is the

only way, but they hold out hope that God will end up saving

everyone through Christ in the end. But they go beyond simply

hoping this will happen (don’t we all?). They’re hopeful, and they

see strong biblical support for this view, though their view is often

tempered with caution.

The least cautious Christian Universalists call themselves

dogmatic Universalists. Like the previous group, they believe that

Christ is the only way, but they go a bit further and say that the

Bible clearly teaches that all will be saved. They find the view not

just possible, but the most probable: They believe that the Bible

clearly teaches that all will be saved through Jesus in the end.

It’s important, then, to understand that Christian Universalists

(hopeful and dogmatic) believe that salvation is by grace through

faith in Christ and Christ alone. There’s nothing untraditional

about this. The difference is that they believe people will have

another chance (or many chances) after death to believe in Jesus

and be saved.

Universalism in the Bible

But how do they arrive at these views? As attractive as this

position is, does anything in the Bible support the idea that God

will end up saving everyone?

M aybe. At first glance, some passages seem to support the

notion that everyone will be saved. But after taking a closer look, it

doesn’t appear that they do. We don’t have time or space to cover

every passage used to support Christian Universalism, so we’ll

take a look at a few of the big ones: Philippians 2, 1 Corinthians

15, 1 Timothy 2, and Revelation 21. We’ll then conclude by

looking at what the Bible says about choosing Jesus after we die.

Every Knee W il Bow

If you were on a deserted island and you uncorked an empty

bottle containing Philippians 2:9–11, you would probably be a

Universalist. After talking about Christ’s humble life, death, and

resurrection, Paul says:

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed

on him the name that is above every name, so that

at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in

heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every

tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the

glory of God the Father.

The key phrase here is “every knee should bow … and every

tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (vv. 10–11). By itself,

this could mean that every single individual who ever lived will

embrace Jesus—if not in this life, then surely in the next.

But all we would need is for the rest of the Philippian letter to

float ashore in order to see that Philippians 2:9–11 doesn’t teach

universal salvation. In Philippians 1:28, Paul says that those who

oppose the gospel will face “destruction,” while those who

embrace it will be saved. There’s a contrast here between believers

and unbelievers; each have very different destinies. In Philippians

3:19, Paul refers to the enemies of Christ whose “end is

destruction,” while followers of Jesus look forward to resurrection

and glory (3:20–21). Once more, there’s a contrast. A contrast

between believers and unbelievers and their individual destinies

(note the word end in 3:19), which follow the decisions they make

in this life.

We also need to see that Paul in Philippians 2 is actually

quoting from the Old Testament book of Isaiah. Here, the prophet

Isaiah looks forward to a time when every knee will bow and every

tongue will confess the name of God (45:23). But in that passage,

Isaiah is referring to God’s salvation, which is witnessed among the

nations and embraced by some but not all. In fact, Isaiah himself, in

the very passage that Paul quotes, says that there will be some

who embrace salvation and some who continue to resist it. 7

So what does Philippians 2:9–11 mean? It means that there will

come a day when Christ returns to reclaim His creation, and

everyone will acknowledge this. King Jesus will reign, and none will

be able to deny it. But Paul doesn’t contradict Isaiah. 8 With this salvation and reign also comes judgment for those who opposed

Christ in this life. Isaiah said this in the very next verse (45:24),

and Paul affirms it as well (Phil. 1:28; 3:19).

Al W il Be Made Alive

Several passages in the New Testament describe God restoring

all people or reconciling all things to Himself. These verses are

often used to prove that God will save every single person. 9 Here

are a few of the big ones:

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be

made alive. (1 Cor. 15:22)

In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself,

not counting their trespasses against them, and

entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. (2

Cor. 5:19)

In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,

and through him to reconcile to himself all things,

whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the

blood of his cross. (Col. 1:19–20)

[God] desires all people to be saved and to come to

the knowledge of the truth. (1 Tim. 2:4)

In looking at these passages, one Christian Universalist says,

“Paul envisioned a time when all persons would be reconciled to

God in the full redemptive sense.” 10

Is that what these passages are saying, or is there something

else going on?

There seems to be something else going on in 1 Corinthians

15:22, for instance, where Paul says, “In Christ all will be made

alive” (NIV). The verse by itself could mean that everyone will end

up being saved, but the context doesn’t support this interpretation.

When Paul says “all will be made alive,” he’s clearly thinking about

the resurrection of believers at the second coming of Christ. In fact,

he says this very thing in the next verse: “All who belong to Christ

will be made alive at his coming” (see vv. 22–23). 11 So the verse can’t mean that everyone will be saved in the end. In fact,

following this verse is a whole lot of destruction: destruction of

everyone and everything that opposes God in this life (vv. 25–

26). 12 This is why Paul concludes the letter with a forceful warning

that everyone who does not love Jesus will be damned (16:22).

So in this case, “all” doesn’t mean every single person. And

this is a good thing to keep in mind when looking at 1 Corinthians

15:22 and other passages like it. You’ve got to figure out from the

context what “all” means. For instance, when M ark said that “all

the country of Judea” and “all the people of Jerusalem” were going

out to be baptized by John (M ark 1:5 NASB), he certainly didn’t

mean every single individual in Judea—man, woman, and child.

“All” here simply denotes a large number of people. In Acts 21:28,

Paul is accused of preaching to “all men everywhere” (NASB). Did

Paul really share the gospel with every single person on earth?

Again, “all” means a whole lot of people in many different places,

not every single individual.

So “all” doesn’t always mean everything or everyone. And the

same goes for 1 Corinthians 15:22, as is clear from the context. The

“all” who will be “made alive” in Christ refers to believers of all

types, not every single person.

Does God Get W hat God W ants?

The same goes for 1 Timothy 2:4, which says: God “wants all

people to be saved” (TNIV).

We could spin a provocative question out of this verse by

asking, Does God get what God wants? 13 And this would set up a rhetorical slam dunk. Of course God gets what He wants!

Otherwise, He’s not God. Or if He is God, He’s not very

powerful.

But hold on a second. This question of God getting what He

wants passes over two other important questions about 1 Timothy

2:4: (1) What’s the meaning of “all,” and (2) what does the word

want mean in this context?

The first question is fairly easy to answer in light of our

discussion above. Once again, the context is key. Just a few verses

earlier, Paul commands Timothy to pray for “all people” (1 Tim.

2:1), and this command is based on God’s desire to save “all

people” (v. 4). If we take the second “all people” to mean every

single person, then surely we’ve got to take the other “all” in the

same way. Does Paul really want us to march through a prayer list

that includes every person on the face of the earth? M aybe this

wouldn’t be a bad thing, but I don’t think this is Paul’s point here.

In 1 Timothy 2:1–2, he qualifies the prayer for “all people” by

adding “for kings and all who are in high positions.” It seems that

Paul is urging Timothy to pray for all types of people—even those

Roman leaders who may persecute Christians!

It’s probably the case that Paul wants Timothy to pray for all

types of people because God is on a mission to save all types of

people.

What then does Paul mean by “want”? This issue is a bit more

complicated, because this word can mean all sorts of different

things. In any case, the word want does not have to mean that God

wants something and is doing all He can to get it, in the same way

that I want a coffee refill and simply walk up to the counter and

get it. In fact, Paul, who said that God wants all people to be

saved, also said that God “wants” all Christians to be sexually pure

(1 Thess. 4:3).14

Ever met a Christian who was not sexually pure? Does this

mean that God is not getting what God wants?

To figure out the meaning of “want,” it’s helpful to consider

what theologians have called God’s moral will and His decreed

will. Some things may be part of God’s desire for the world, and

yet these desires can be resisted. God doesn’t desire that people

sin, but He allows it to happen because humans are moral agents

who often make evil choices. God is not a puppet master who

pulls everyone’s strings to suit His will. That’s why the Lord

taught us to pray things like “your will be done, on earth as it is in

heaven” (M att. 6:10). God’s desire—His moral will—is resisted.

And then there’s God’s decreed will. This refers to those

things that God makes happen regardless of what humans decide.

He sometimes uses our bad choices—our rebellion against His

moral will—to carry out His decreed will. There’s a difference, in

other words, between God’s values that please Him (moral will)

and those events that He causes to happen (decreed will). 15

Is this getting too heavy? M aybe an illustration will help. In

Judges 14—16, we read about a loose cannon named Samson.

Though he was mighty in warfare, his moral compass was

significantly flawed, as seen in his love for ladies of the pagan sort.

At the beginning of the story, Samson fell in love with a Philistine

woman, which was against God’s moral will (Judg. 3:1–6). And

yet Judges 14:4 says that his love affair was “from the LORD.”

God was “seeking an opportunity against the Philistines,” and so

He used Samson’s lust to oppose the Philistines. Samson’s love

for pagan women went against God’s moral will, but became part

of God’s decreed will. Samson was free to go against God’s moral

will, yet God intervened to carry out His decreed will in using this

situation to fight against the Philistines.

Now back to 1 Timothy 2. In what sense does God want all

people to be saved? The word underscores God’s moral will, His

desire to save all types of people. They are free to reject this

because it isn’t God’s decreed will, but the verse captures God’s

heart nonetheless. So a question framed as, does God get what God

wants? implies that if He doesn’t save everyone as He set out to,

then He’s a failure. But this is a naive assumption at best; at worst,

the rhetoric is tremendously misleading.

Paul’s point is not that Timothy is to pray for every single

person who ever lived, and neither is it that God has decreed that

He will save everyone. The point of 1 Timothy 2 and other

passages like it (e.g., 2 Peter 3:9) is that God is not a bigot; He’s

not a racist; He loves to reverse social-class distinctions because

His love knows no boundaries. The gospel has broken down all

ethnic and socioeconomic barriers through the cross of Jesus

Christ, as Paul says elsewhere (Eph. 2:11–22). 16 God even wants

pedophile maniacs like Caesar Nero (i.e., “kings and all who are in

high positions” in 1 Tim. 2:2) to repent and come to Jesus! Paul

nearly got to Nero with the gospel and had his head chopped off in

the process. But that’s another story.

W ho Left the Gate Open?

Let’s flip to the last book of the Bible, where some argue that

all will ultimately be saved. Revelation 21 envisions believers

flowing into the “New Jerusalem,” which in one way or another

depicts our final state. John, the writer, says that “its gates will

never be shut” (v. 25) and that “the kings of the earth” will “bring

their glory into” the New Jerusalem (v. 24). But who left that gate

open? What is John saying by using this image of open gates?

Some have taken this to mean that God will forever wait with open

arms (or open gates) for unbelievers to turn to Him. “Once they

have been purified in the lake of fire,” says one writer, “those most

vile of all men … will be free to enter the New Jerusalem through

gates that never close. ”17

But does the image of open gates show that “those who have

said no to God’s love in this life” will have endless opportunities

to say yes to it in the afterlife? 18 This is an interesting suggestion. I would love to believe it, but three things in the text make it hard for

me to accept that theory. First, Revelation 20 and 21 have already

described the “lake of fire” as the final destiny of those who don’t

follow Jesus in this life. There’s nothing in Revelation that

suggests there’s hope on the other side of the lake. Second, there’s

nothing in the text that says the lake of fire is intended to purify the

wicked. On the contrary, the judgment scene in 20:11–15 explains

that the lake of fire is for punishment. 19 And third, even after the open-gates passage of 21:24–26, John goes on to depict two

different destinies for believers and unbelievers:

Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that

they may have the right to the tree of life and that

they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are

the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and

murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves

and practices falsehood. (22:14–15)

This passage says that there will be an ongoing separation

between believers and unbelievers. What determines their destinies

is whether or not they “wash[ed] their robes;” in other words,

whether or not their sin has been dealt with through the blood of

Jesus in this life (see Rev. 7:14). I think it’s a stretch to suggest

that unbelievers can wash their robes while in the lake of fire and

then enter the gates.

To sum it up, there are some passages in the New Testament

that seem to say everyone will be saved. But after looking at the

context, we see that these passages probably don’t mean this. Not

only would this contradict many other passages that speak of

judgment and retribution (as we will see in the following chapters),

it doesn’t align well with the context of the passages themselves.

W hat about Those Passages That Say There W il Be a

Second Chance?

I said at the beginning that the one thing all Christian

Universalists agree upon is that after death there will be another

chance (or an endless string of chances) to choose Jesus. The

Universalist view depends upon it. So we need to wrestle with all

the postmortem second-chance passages to see if they actually

teach this view. The problem is, there aren’t any passages that say

this.

No passage in the Bible says that there will be a second chance

after death to turn to Jesus.

And that’s frightening. It’s frightening because the idea of an

after-death conversion is the most important ingredient for the

Universalist position. It makes or breaks this view. But there is no

single passage in the Bible that describes, hints at, hopes for, or

suggests that someone who dies without following Jesus in this life

will have an opportunity to do so after death. One Christian

Universalist admits this. Arguing for the possibility of people

getting out of hell, he says:

Clearly my interpretation is underdetermined by the

texts.… I am not so much exegeting the texts as

trying to draw out the logic of New Testament

theology as I understand it and its implications for

those texts. In the process I may be offering ways

of reading the texts that go beyond what their

authors had in mind.20

Keep in mind that we’re not simply trying to settle a doctrinal

issue. We’re talking about people’s destinies. The thought that

someone may end up banking on a second chance after they die

even though the biblical authors never explicitly said this is … well

…

Terrifying.

These are eternal destinies we’re talking about. We can’t be

wrong on this one. To make a compelling case that “the love of

God will melt every hard heart, and even the most ‘depraved

sinners’ will eventually give up their resistance and turn to God” 21

without clear biblical evidence is incredibly dangerous—especially

if you are one of these “sinners” and things don’t work out like

this. If the doctor said your daughter is going to be fine, and she

died three days later, you’d call the authorities.

The Bible does not say that there will be a second chance after

death. In fact, some passages even warn against this type of false

hope.

For instance, toward the end of His life, Jesus told a parable

about second chances (Luke 13:22–30). 22 Jesus is making His way

to Jerusalem, and His disciples ask how many people will end up

being saved. Jesus answers that few will be saved, but even worse,

many who think they are saved will end up on the “outside” of the

kingdom, so to speak. While outside, they’ll knock on the door to

see if Jesus will let them in. What will happen when Jesus comes

to the door?

According to those who believe that there are second chances

after death, Jesus answers, “Come on in!” He has to, right? To

think that Jesus would answer any other way is cruel. It would be

unloving and unjust! Could Jesus actually say, “‘Door’s locked.

Sorry. If you had been here earlier, I could have done something.

But now, it’s too late’”? 23

Yes, actually, He could. Though we may wish for the door to

fling open, Jesus says that He will do the opposite:

“When once the master of the house has risen and

shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to

knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then

he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come

from.… Depart from me, all you workers of evil!’

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of

teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob

and all the prophets in the kingdom of God but you

yourselves cast out.” (Luke 13:25–28)

This passage “gives no hint whatever that the door will remain

permanently open.” 24 If Jesus believed in second chances for those

who reject Him in this life, then this parable is dangerously

misleading.

For those who follow Jesus, there is everlasting life in the

presence of God, but for those who don’t follow Him, there will be

punishment. And as we have seen in this chapter, the Bible doesn’t

seem to hold out hope for a second chance. 25 How scary this is for

those who will find themselves on the other side of the door

wanting to come in, banging and begging, wishing they had made

some different choices while they had the opportunity.

It’s sobering to think about this parable. Jesus did not say

these words so we would one day merely discuss them in a book.

Like all Scripture, this parable is meant to impact our souls. Please

take some time to at least read it again. Read it with care. Read it

with conviction, knowing that there will be people on the outside,

in a terrible place of punishment.

A place called hell.

Notes

1 For a historical survey, see Richard Bauckham, “Universalism—

A Historical Survey,” Themelios 4.2 (1979): 48–54; M orwenna

Ludlow, “Universalism in the History of Christianity,” in

Robin A. Parry and Christopher H. Partridge, eds., Universal

Salvation? The Current Debate (Grand Rapids, M I: Eerdmans,

2003): 191–218.

2 For elaboration on the inconsistencies of Origen’s thought,

especially his views on universal salvation, see M ark S. M .

Scott, “Guarding the M ysteries of Salvation: The Pastoral

Pedagogy of Origen’s Universalism,” Journal of Early

Christian Studies 18.3 (2010): 347–68; Tom Greggs,

“Exclusivist or Universalist? Origen the ‘Wise Steward of the

Word’ ( CommRom. V.1.7) and the Issue of Genre,”

International Journal of Systematic Theology 9.3 (2007): 315–

327.

3 Origen’s views were deemed heretical at the fifth ecumenical church council held at Constantinople in AD 553. However, a

great deal of politics drove this council, as well as other early

church councils, so we shouldn’t consider Origen’s views

heretical based solely on the decisions made at Constantinople.

4 Thomas Talbott, The Inescapable Love of God (Boca Raton, FL:

Universal Publishers, 1999); Gregory M acDonald, The

Evangelical Universalist (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2006).

Gregory M acDonald is a pseudonym.

5 In his book Love Wins, Bell never actually comes out and says that this is what he believes. To be fair, he is not explicitly

arguing for this position but listing it as a valid view that would

help explain a lot of the tension that we feel when thinking

about the hard realities of hell. But he presents this position in

such favorable terms that it would be hard to say that he is not

advocating it. He even says the traditional view of a literal hell

that features eternal torment is not “good news” at all. To use

Bell’s phrase, “The good news is better than that.” He implies

the view that all people will eventually be saved is actually

much better news. So while he never says that this is the

correct view, Bell certainly presents this view as the good view

and the traditional view of hell as the bad view. See Love Wins

(New York: HarperOne, 2011), 110–111, 173–175.

6 Bell, Love Wins, 107.

7 See Howard M arshall, “The New Testament Does Not Teach

Universal Salvation,” in Parry and Partridge, Universal

Salvation, 68–69. This reading is supported by the conclusion

of the book of Isaiah, which depicts two groups of people,

those on God’s side and those who remain against Him: “[A]ll

flesh shall come to worship before me, declares the LORD. And

they shall go out and look on the dead bodies of the men who

have rebelled against me. For their worm shall not die, their fire

shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all

flesh” (66:23–24). And that’s how Isaiah ends. There will be

restoration for those who turn to God, and judgment followed

by punishment for those who don’t.

8 Throughout Isaiah 40—66, the nations will “see” (40:5; 52:10, 15), “understand” (52:15) and even “know” about (45:6; 49:26)

God’s salvation of His people, but this doesn’t mean that they

embrace it. For instance, Isaiah says that the pagan king Cyrus

the Great will “know that it is … the LORD” who raised him

up, and yet the next verse says “though you do not know me”

(Isa. 45:3–4). So does Cyrus “know” God or not? Yes and no.

H e knows God in the sense that he acknowledges God’s

sovereignty, but he doesn’t know God so as to believe in Him

for salvation.

Now, to be sure, there will be many among the nations (i.e.,

Gentiles) who will embrace this God of Israel. This is an

important theme in Isaiah as well (44:5; 45:14, 20 – 25; 49:7;

55:5). But Isaiah never says that everyone without exception

will be saved.

9 Passages include Romans 5:18–19, Romans 11:32, and Ephesians

1:10.

10 Thomas Talbott, “Christ Victorious,” in Parry and Partridge, Universal Salvation, 25. Similarly, Rob Bell says “no one can

resist God’s pursuit forever, because God’s love will

eventually melt even the hardest of hearts” ( Love Wins , 108).

In this quote, Bell is thinking of Colossians 1 in particular.

11 I’ve switched the order of words in 15:22–23 for clarity, but the

meaning I’m giving here is clear from the context.

12 Thomas Talbott claims that God will only destroy the sinful nature of unbelievers, according to this passage (“Christ

Victorious,” 27). But there’s nothing in the actual text to

justify this interpretation.

13 This is the title of chapter 4 in Bell’s Love Wins.

14 First Thessalonians 4:3 says “For this is the will of God, your

sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality.” The

Greek word for “will” is thelema, which is the noun form of the

verb translated “want” in 1 Timothy 2:4 (NIV).

15 See M illard Erickson, Christian Theology, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, M I: Baker, 1998), 387–88. Of course, it may be that

God’s decreed will includes the very resistance of His moral

will. But that’s getting a bit off track.

16 N. T. Wright calls this “biblical universalism” in his “Towards a

Biblical View of Universalism,” Themelios 4.2 (1979): 54–58.

17 Thomas Talbott, “A Pauline Interpretation of Divine

Judgment,” in Parry and Partridge, Universal Salvation, 42. See

also Vernard Eller, The Most Revealing Book of the Bible:

Making Sense Out of Revelation (Grand Rapids, M I: Eerdmans,

1974), 200–201; Bell, Love Wins, 114–115.

18 As Bell suggests ( Love Wins, 114–115).

19 M ore specifically, retributive punishment and not remedial

punishment.

20 M acDonald, The Evangelical Universalist, 140.

21 Bell, Love Wins, 107.

22 The parable is not exclusively about the afterlife, because “the

kingdom” is a present reality. However, the parable certainly

includes the afterlife, because the kingdom extends into the age

to come. M oreover, Jesus’ words “in that place there will be

weeping and gnashing of teeth” (13:28), along with people

being “cast out” (13:28) clearly point to hell, as they do

elsewhere in M atthew (see 8:12; 22:13; 25:30). See M arshall,

“The New Testament Does Not Teach Universal Salvation,”

59.

23 The quote is from Bell, who raises this question in Love Wins,

108. In the context, Bell is summarizing the view that he finds

legitimate and compelling, though he doesn’t necessarily say

it’s correct.

24 M arshall, “The New Testament Does Not Teach Universal

Salvation,” 59.

25 See also M atthew 25:1–12; Hebrews 9:27; Revelation 22:11.

Chapter 2

Has Hell Changed? Or Have We?

I am embarrassed to admit this, but when I hear the name Jesus, a

picture often appears in my mind. It’s a painting of a Caucasian

male with long blond hair, staring into the sky. It hung on the wall

of a church I once attended. Growing up, I saw it every Sunday

morning. It bothers me now, because it is ridiculously inaccurate. I

know that Jesus did not look that way when He walked the earth,

and He certainly doesn’t look like that now. But as hard as I have

tried, I have not been able to erase that picture from my memory.

It occasionally creeps back into my mind when I hear the name

Jesus. Sometimes it even happens when I’m praying! I doubt

anyone struggled with this problem two thousand years ago.

Today, when you say the name Jesus, all sorts of images

appear in our minds. There are millions of different ideas about

what He was and is like. Some people, like me, have inaccurate

images that we are still trying to shake. Others create new ideas

about Jesus and spend their lives trying to convince themselves

those ideas are true. Deep down, we all have a tendency to recreate

Jesus in our own image. Before we know it, we have an American

Jesus, a Western Jesus, a postmodern Jesus, a hippie Jesus, or a

capitalistic or socialistic Jesus. Deep down in the heart of every

person is a hidden desire to reinterpret Jesus in light of our own

culture, political bent, or favorite theological belief.

We do the same thing with hell. The question “what is hell?”

has spawned many answers over the years. For Origen, hell was a

place where the souls of the wicked were purified so they could

find their way back to God. Dante depicted hell as a place under

the earth’s surface with nine levels of suffering, where sinners were

bitten by snakes, tormented by beasts, showered with icy rain, and

trapped in rivers of blood or flaming tombs; some were even

steeped in huge pools of human excrement. C. S. Lewis’s portrayal

of hell was significantly less creepy. For Lewis, it was kind of like

a dark, gloomy city, or a place where “being fades away into

nonentity.” 1 A happier portrait of hell was painted by the band AC/DC, who said that “hell ain’t a bad place to be”—it’s where all

our friends are. 2 M ost recently, Rob Bell said that hell is not

“about someday, somewhere else,” 3 but about the various “hells on

earth” that people experience in this life—genocide, rape, and

unjust socioeconomic structures. 4

Through the years, many ideas of hell have been proposed—

some attractive, some not. But if truth is what we are after, we

need to stick to what Jesus actually said. We also need to try to

understand Jesus’ statements in the context of the world He lived

in. We need to enter Jesus’ world, His first-century Jewish world,

if we’re going to figure out what He meant when He spoke of hell.

We need to enter Jesus’ world because Jesus was a Jew, a Jew

who lived two thousand years ago in the M iddle East. He spoke

Aramaic and also a bit of Greek, though probably with an accent.

He didn’t know a lick of English—certainly nothing of the

Elizabethan, KJV sort. He was a blue-collar man who worked long

hard days as a woodworker (or mason), and probably bore the

physical features of a hardworking peasant: dark leathery skin,

calloused hands, and a few scars here and there from working in the

shop. Jesus probably didn’t have long hair because this wasn’t

typical of Jewish men of His day, and He certainly didn’t have

blue eyes, blond hair, and milky white skin.

Jesus was a first-century Jew, so we need to leave behind all

our Jesuses that have been refashioned and reshaped by our own

cultural biases. The only way we’re going to understand what

Jesus said about hell is to soak ourselves in the Bible’s own

culture. Breathe its air. Feel its dirt. Smell the scent of first-century

Palestine—and then we’ll be in a better position to understand

more clearly what Jesus and His followers were saying about hell.

So to this world we turn. What we find in this context is that

hell was seen as a place of punishment for those who don’t follow

God. In fact, so ingrained was the belief in hell among first-century

Jews5 that Jesus would have had to go out of His way to distance

Himself from these beliefs if He didn’t hold them. In the next

chapter, we’ll consider whether or not Jesus actually does this. For

now, we’ll dig into the Jewish culture around Him to see what His

contemporaries said about hell.

Specifically, in this chapter we’ll see that for the Jews of

Jesus’ day:

1. Hell is a place of punishment after judgment.

2. Hell is described in imagery of fire and darkness, where

people lament.

3. Hell is a place of annihilation or never-ending

punishment.

So let’s take a quick tour of some of these Jewish writers to see

what they say about hell. 6 Just to be clear, none of the passages we’ll look at here are in the New Testament; rather, they were

written by Jews right around the same time (200 BC—AD 100).

To keep it simple, I’ll just reference the dates of passages

throughout and leave the rest of the information for the notes. I

realize that some of you reading this are not on the edge of your

seats thinking, Cool! I love studying first-century Judaism! But try

to stay with me. I think a short history lesson is necessary to help

us erase any twenty-first century ideas of Jesus we may have

added.

The First-Century Jewish View of Hell

Jews in the first century used the Old Testament to build their

theology. But the Old Testament doesn’t say much about hell. The

doctrine of hell is progressively developed throughout Scripture,

much like heaven, the Holy Spirit, and even Jesus. This definitely

does not mean that these things changed over time; God simply

reveals more and more about them as Scripture unfolds. We see

this especially with hell. The Old Testament does make a few

vague references to punishment in the afterlife; Daniel 12:2 is the

most relevant: “M any of those who sleep in the dust of the earth

shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and

everlasting contempt” (see also Ezek. 32:17–32). Such statements,

though, are infrequent in the Old Testament. It’s not until the New

Testament that these ideas are fully revealed.

M any first-century Jews, while studying the Old Testament

(Daniel 12 in particular), developed certain beliefs about hell.

Again, these beliefs are not in themselves inspired by God.

Understand that I am not attempting in this chapter to determine

whether or not the conclusions of first-century Jews were accurate.

I am just describing the common beliefs about hell that Jesus and

other New Testament writers would have grown up with. In

general, here’s what the first-century Jews believed.

Hel Is a Place of Punishment after Judgment

The typical afterlife scenario among Jews in Jesus’ day was

that after the wicked die, they go to a place called hades,

sometimes called sheol. This is not the same thing as “hell.” Hades

is not usually depicted as a place of punishment, though the

wicked may suffer there. It is a place where the wicked wait until

judgment day. After they are judged, the wicked are then thrown

into hell as punishment for their sins. It’s important to note that

for the first-century Jew, this punishment is not corrective or

remedial (think “remedy”); in other words punishment doesn’t

make them fit for salvation. Rather, hell is retributive—it’s God’s

punishment for sin. Consider the following:

[T]he chambers shall give up the souls which have

been committed to them. And the M ost High shall

be revealed upon the seat of judgment …

recompense shall follow … unrighteous deeds shall

not sleep. Then the pit of torment shall appear …

and the furnace of Gehenna shall be disclosed. (first

century AD)7

The same writer described gehenna , or hell, as a place of “fire

and torments,” where the wicked “wander about in torments, ever

grieving and sad.” Worst of all, this judgment is final, “because

they cannot now make a good repentance that they may live.” 8

According to another Jewish writer,

[T]he sinners are set apart when they die and are

buried in the earth and judgment has not been

executed upon them in their lifetime, upon this great

pain, until the great day of judgment—and to those

who curse (there will be) plague and pain forever,

and the retribution of their spirits. (second century

BC)9

Here, after sinners die they go to a place where they await

judgment. The author even notes that they have not received

judgment in their lifetime. In other words, hell is not considered to

be the various “hells on earth” that we face every day. It’s a

horrific place of judgment where God punishes people for their

sins. 10

Hel Is Described in Images of Fire, Darkness, and Lament

Of all the images used to describe hell, fire is the most common.

Consider the following:

[T]he coming world will be given to these [i.e., the

ones obedient to God], but the habitation of the

many others will be in fire. (first century AD)11

Woe unto you, sinners, because of the works of

your hands! On account of the deeds of your

wicked ones, in blazing flames worse than fire, it

shall burn. (first century BC)12

On judgment day, all the sinners whose names are “blotted out

of the book of life” will “cry and lament in a place that is an

invisible wilderness and burn in the fire. ” This place “was

completely dark” and yet “the flame of its fire … was burning

brightly” (first century AD). 13 Hell is an “abyss … full of fire”

where the wicked are “cast into this fiery abyss, and they were

burned.” 14

Fire, darkness, lamenting. These are the typical images used by

first-century Jews to describe hell, and, as we’ll see, they are the

same images used by Jesus and other New Testament writers.

Now, as for the duration of hell, there was difference of

opinion among the Jews. Some believed that the wicked would be

annihilated in hell (their personal existence would cease), while

others believed the wicked would be punished forever in an

ongoing state of torment.

Hel Is a Place of Annihilation

Some Jewish writers believed that the wicked would be

annihilated. One , who lived in Israel around the time of Jesus, put

it like this:

And their dwelling place will be in darkness and the

place of destruction; and they will not die but melt

away until I remember the world and renew the

earth. And then they will die and not live, and their

life will be taken away from the number of all men.

(first century AD)15

The fact that they don’t die right away but “melt away”

suggests some period of suffering. But ultimately, for this Jewish

writer, there will be an annihilation of the wicked.

Hel Is a Place of Never-Ending Punishment

While some believed that the wicked would be annihilated,

others believed that hell is a place of never-ending punishment.

These Jewish writers described hell as a place of “all kinds of

torture and torment” where “dark and merciless” beings would use

“instruments of atrocities torturing without pity” (first to second

century AD). 16 Hell was called an “abyss” where its “prisoners were in pain, looking forward to endless punishment” (first to

second century AD). 17 Another writer described the wicked in hell:

pleading that he may give them a little breathing

spell from the angels of his punishment … begging

for a little rest but find it not.… Light has vanished

from before us and darkness has become your

habitation forever and ever; because we have

formerly neither had faith nor glorified the name of

the Lord of the Spirits. (first century AD)18

One graphic account depicts seven brothers being martyred by

some Greek overlords. After the first six die, the seventh brother,

after being tortured, blurts out before he dies,

Because of this, justice has laid up for you intense

and eternal fire and tortures, and these throughout

all time will never let you go. (first century AD)19

He basically tells his torturer to go to hell.

We could go on and on, citing Jewish writer after Jewish writer,

all living and writing around the time of Jesus. If you want even

more references to hell from first-century Judaism, you can check

out the notes. 20 But from the passages cited above, one thing is clear: First-century Jews believed in hell. While there’s some

difference of opinion regarding the duration of hell, its existence as

a place of punishment that awaits the wicked was nearly

unanimously held. 21 This is undeniable. This is the first-century Jewish view of hell. 22

And this Jewish world is the one Jesus grew up in. If we want

to understand Jesus in light of His own first-century context, then

we need to understand what this context believed about hell. This

will keep us from reading back into the New Testament our own

ideas about what Jesus was saying about hell.

Is Hel a Garbage Dump?

Now, some recent writers do try to situate Jesus in His own

context. This is actually one of the most encouraging aspects of

Rob Bell’s preaching and writing. Bell rightly says that to “grab a

few lines of Jesus and drop them down on someone 2,000 years

later without first entering into the world in which they first

appeared is lethal to the life and vitality and truth of the Bible.” 23

It’s not just wrong, but “lethal to the … truth of the Bible,” says

Rob. Amen!

In following Bell’s advice, we have entered the world in which

Jesus’ statements on hell first appeared and have seen that this

world believed in hell as a literal place of punishment. Bell also

attempts to understand Jesus’ view of hell in light of first-century

Judaism but comes up with some very different results. We’ve

already noted that Bell emphasizes that hell is the “hells on earth,”

the tragedies that this life brings, as opposed to a place of

punishment for the wicked after death. 24 But this emphasis does not match the first-century scene, as you have seen firsthand.

Bell suggests that when Jesus used the word hell (gehenna), He

referred to a garbage dump outside Jerusalem, where the Jews used

to throw their trash. Bell argues that “Gehenna, in Jesus’s day,

was the city dump” and that this is what Jesus meant by hell:

People tossed their garbage and waste into this

valley. There was a fire there, burning constantly to

consume the trash. Wild animals fought over the

scraps of food along the edges of the heap. When

they fought, their teeth would make a gnashing

sound. Gehenna was the place with the gnashing of

teeth, where the fire never went out. Gehenna was

an actual place that Jesus’s listeners would have

been familiar with. So the next time someone asks

you if you believe in an actual hell, you can always

say, “Yes, I do believe that my garbage goes

somewhere …” 25

But if Jesus was really referring to the literal city dump when

He spoke of gehenna, then many of His statements are awkward to

say the least:

“Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the

garbage dump of fire .” (M att. 5:22)

“It is better that you lose one of your members than

that your whole body be thrown into the garbage

dump. ” (M att. 5:29)

“Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in

the garbage dump. ” (M att. 10:28)

“It is better for you to enter life with one eye than

with two eyes to be thrown into the garbage dump

of fire.” (M att. 18:9)

Also, Jesus tells the scribes and Pharisees that they have made

themselves “twice as much a child of the garbage dump” and then

He asks, “How will you escape being condemned to the garbage

dump?” (M att. 23:15, 33, adapted).

While I applaud Bell’s attempt to understand Jesus in His

first-century Jewish context, his “gehenna is a garbage dump”

theory is both misleading and inaccurate. Here’s why.

First, it’s misleading because it confuses the source of an idea

for the idea itself. 26 Just because Jesus’ description of hell may have been inspired by the image of a burning garbage dump (if it

was) doesn’t mean that He is referring to the actual garbage dump

when He uses the word gehenna. For example, I’ve often heard

people refer to a gridlocked freeway as a parking lot. The

statement is inspired by a literal parking lot, but nobody is

claiming that people drive to the freeway, stop, lock their cars, and

then go about their business. That’s just the way imagery works.

So to say that Jesus was referring to an actual dump is to

misunderstand the way language functions.

Second, the “gehenna is a garbage dump” suggestion is also

inaccurate. The whole theory actually stands on very shaky

evidence. Some commentaries and pastors still promote the idea,

but there’s no evidence from the time of Jesus that the Hinnom

Valley (gehenna literally means “Valley of Hinnom”) was the town

dump. In fact, there is no evidence for hundreds and hundreds of

years after Jesus that there ever was a garbage dump in the Hinnom

Valley in the first century. Nor is there any archaeological evidence

that this valley was ever a dump27 (if it was a dump, we’d be able

to dig around and find evidence). In fact, the first reference we have

to the Hinnom Valley, or gehenna, as a town dump is made by a

rabbi named David Kimhi in a commentary, which was written in

AD 1200.

AD 1200! That’s over a thousand years after Jesus lived! This

is the first time that the Hinnom Valley was ever associated with

the town dump. Here’s the quote from Kimhi:

Gehenna is a repugnant place, into which filth and

cadavers are thrown, and in which fires perpetually

burn in order to consume the filth and bones; on

which account, by analogy, the judgment of the

wicked is called “Gehenna.” 28

Kimhi, writing in the late M iddle Ages—from Europe, by the

way, not Israel—is the first one to make this suggestion. So here’s

the problem: What are the chances that Jesus is thinking of this

town dump in using the term gehenna when we have no evidence

that there was such a place until over a thousand years after He

lived? There’s no evidence in the piles and piles of Jewish and

Christian writings preceding the time of Kimhi that the word

gehenna was derived from the burning garbage in the Hinnom

Valley.

And did you notice what Kimhi himself said about the word

gehenna? He said that the garbage dump of “gehenna” became an

“analogy” for “the judgment of the wicked.” So, even the first

writer to connect gehenna with the garbage dump saw it as an

analogy for the place where the wicked will be judged.

M uch of what Bell says about hell relies upon a legend from

the M iddle Ages.

So what was it about the Hinnom Valley that forged the word

gehenna into an image of fiery judgment? In the Old Testament,

the Hinnom Valley was the place where some Israelites engaged in

idolatrous worship of the Canaanite gods M olech and Baal. It was

here, in fact, where they sacrificed their children to these gods (2

Kings 16:3; 21:6) making them “pass through the fire” (Ezek.

16:20–21 NASB). When Jeremiah began to preach, the Hinnom

Valley started to take on a metaphorical reference for the place

where the bodies of the wicked would be cast (Jer. 7:29–34; 19:6–

9; 32:35): “Behold, the days are coming … when it will no more be

called … the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley of

Slaughter” (Jer. 7:32). Jews living between the Testaments picked

up on this metaphor and ran with it. The word gehenna was

widely used by Jews during the time of Jesus to refer to the fiery

place of judgment for the wicked in the end times, as we have

seen. 29

For first-century Jews, the violent image of evildoers being

punished in the Hinnom Valley provided a fitting analogy for God

punishing the wicked in hell. Because Jesus lived and taught in this

setting, His unqualified references to gehenna would have been

taken to mean the same thing, unless He specified that He had

something else in mind—a question that we will explore in the next

chapter.

Understanding first-century Judaism and what those Jews

believed about hell prepares us for understanding Jesus’ teaching

on the subject in His own context. As we turn to the next chapter,

we need to ask ourselves a very important question: Did Jesus

affirm or reject this widespread first-century belief in hell?

Notes

1 C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1940), 129.

2 AC/DC, “Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be,” Let There Be Rock ©

1977 Atlantic Records.

3 Bell, Love Wins, 81.

4 For Rob Bell, hell is primarily the various hells on earth; at least

this is the impression he gives in his book Love Wins . Hell is

the evil of a child being molested by a family member (p. 72).

Hell is the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide (pp. 70–71).

Hell is “the very real experiences and consequences of rejecting

our God-given goodness and humanity” (p. 73). It is important

for Bell that we “don’t take Jesus’s very real and prescient

warnings about judgment out of context, making them about

someday, somewhere else” (p. 81). And the best word to

capture all the “terrible evil that comes from the secrets hidden

deep within our hearts all the way to the massive, society-wide

collapse and chaos that comes when we fail to live in God’s

world God’s way” is the word hell (p. 93). Now, in passing,

Bell does say “there is hell later” along with a hell now (p. 79).

And when he wrestles with the parable of the rich man and

Lazarus (Luke 16), he mentions that the rich man is in

“profound torment” (p. 77)—though he defines this torment as

“living with the realities of not dying to” the unjust

socioeconomic system in his previous life. But other than these

two side comments, virtually everything Bell says about hell

refers to the various hells on earth, the evil of this world: rape,

addictions, child abuse, poverty, violence, and so on. A similar

view is taken by Andrew Perriman, The Coming of the Son of

Man: New Testament Eschatology for an Emerging Church

(M ilton Keynes, UK: Paternoster, 2005), 74–97.

5 Throughout this chapter, I’ll be using the term first century broadly to refer to the general time of Jesus.

6 This chapter is going to dig into the wild and complicated world

of Second Temple Judaism. Throughout this chapter, I’ll be

using the translations and dates of the Jewish literature from

James

H.

Charlesworth,

ed., The

Old

Testament

Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (New York: Doubleday: 1983, 1985).

For the translations of the Apocrypha, I’m using the New

Revised Standard Version; and for the Dead Sea Scrolls,

Florentino Garcia-M artinez and Eibert Tigchelaar, eds., The

Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 2 vols. (Leiden, The

Netherlands: Brill, 1997). There is a ton of secondary literature

on the subject of early Jewish views of hell and the afterlife.

Among the most helpful are Duane F. Watson, “Gehenna,” in

David Noel Freedman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New

York: Doubleday, 1992): 2.296–298, and Richard Bauckham,

“Early Jewish Visions of Hell,” Journal of Theological Studies

41 (1990): 355–85.

7 4 Ezra 7:32–36.

8 4 Ezra 7:38, 80, 82.

9 1 En. 22:10–13.

10 See also 1 En. 27:2–3: “This accursed valley is for those accursed forever; here will gather together all (those) accursed

ones, those who speak with their mouth unbecoming words

against the Lord.… Here they shall be gathered together, and

here shall be their judgment, in the last days” (second century

BC). For hell as a place of retribution, see 2 Bar. 30:4–5; 54:21.

11 2 Bar. 44:15; see too T. Zeb. 10:3.

12 1 En. 100:9. See too L.A.B. 23:6: “[Hell is] the place of fire where the deeds of those doing wickedness against [God] will

be expiated” (first century AD); 2 En. 10:2 [J]: “And there is

no light there, and a black fire blazes up perpetually, with a

river of fire that comes out over the whole place” (first century

AD).

13 1 En. 108:3–4. Another writer uses the imagery of fire and darkness together in 1 En. 103:5–8. One writer even uses the

image of worms and fire together, much as Jesus and Isaiah did

(Isa. 66:24; M ark 9:48): “Woe to the nations that rise up

against my people! The Lord Almighty will take vengeance on

them in the day of judgment; he will send fire and worms into

their flesh; they shall weep in pain forever” (Judith 16:17; first

century BC).

14 1 En. 90:26–27; see also 2 En. 40:13.

15 L.A.B. 16:3; see also Wis. 4:14–15; 1 QS 4:11–14; 1 En. 91:9–

14.

16 2 En. 10:1, 3 [J]. I’m following the first-century date for 2

Enoch given in Charlesworth (ed.), but other scholars date this

work in the second or third century AD. For similar references,

s ee 1 En. 53:3; 56:1; 62:11; 63:1, where these punishments

seem to be awaiting the wicked after judgment, rather than

happening upon death.

17 2 En. 40:13 [J].

18 1 En. 63:1–7.

19 4 M acc. 12:12.

20 Hell is described as “the measure of fire, the depths of the abyss … the abundance of long-suffering, the truth of judgment

… the mouth of hell, the standing place of vengeance … the

picture of the coming punishment” and “the powers of the

flame” ( 2 Bar. 59:5–12). On judgment day, God will “drag

Beliar [the Devil], and his hosts also, into Gehenna,” and He

will then resurrect the dead and “cause fire” to “consume all the

impious, and they will become as if they had not been created”

( Ascen. Is. 4:14–18).

21 The Sadducees, who didn’t believe in an afterlife, certainly wouldn’t have believed in hell.

22 While some believed that upon death the wicked awaited

punishment (as stated above), others believed that the wicked

would enter fiery punishment immediately upon death. It

seems that the Pharisees believed this. They said that the

righteous receive rewards and the wicked receive punishment

immediately after they die ( Ant. 18.14). This also seems to be

reflected in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke

16:19–31, which Richard Bauckham says is the only place in

the New Testament that mentions punishment immediately

upon death (“Early Jewish Visions of Hell,” 376).

23 Rob Bell, Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith (Grand Rapids, M I: Zondervan, 2005), 63.

24 At times, Bell does say that the behavior of the wicked will be

corrected in the end (see Love Wins, 91–93). I assume that he’s

talking about hell as a place of correction in these contexts,

though he doesn’t use the term hell.

25 Ibid., 68. See also Perriman, The Coming of the Son of Man, 92:

“By the first century, the Valley of Hinnom (in Greek geenna,

gehenna) … had become the city’s refuse dump, where slow

fires smoldered day and night.”

26 In linguistic terms, Bell confuses the referent with the sense. See D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids, M I:

Baker, 1996), 63–64.

27 See Lloyd R. Bailey, “Gehenna: The Topography of Hell,”

Biblical Archaeologist 49.3 (1986): 187–91.

28 Cited in Bailey, “Gehenna,” 188. Some scholars still refer to this myth, but cite no evidence (see e.g., Perriman, The Coming

of the Son of Man, 92–93). R. T. France mentions it but is

doubtful regarding its veracity, citing Bailey’s article ( The

Gospel of Matthew [New International Commentary on the

New Testament] [Grand Rapids, M I: Eerdmans, 2007], 202).

Others, like Bailey, dismiss the myth altogether (see G. R.

Beasley -M urray, Jesus and the Kingdom of God [Grand

Rapids, M I: Eerdmans, 1986], 376; Peter Head, “The Duration

of Divine Judgment in the New Testament,” in Kent Brower

and M ark Elliott, eds., Eschatology in Bible and Theology

[Downers Grove, IL.: Inter-Varsity Press, 1997], 223). Several

bloggers also pointed this out shortly after Love Wins came out

(see bibleplaces.org; et al.).

29 On gehenna, see Freedman, The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 2.296–298. For early Jewish references to gehenna as the place

of punishment for the wicked, see 1 En. 26–27; 54:1–6; 56:1–4;

90:24–27; 4 Ezra 7:26–38; Ascen. Is. 4:14–18; Sib. Or. 4.179–

91.

Chapter 3

What Jesus Actually Said about Hell

As I write this chapter about hell, I’m sitting in the middle of a

busy Starbucks. Every time I look up from my computer screen, I

see that I’m surrounded by thirsty customers racing to the counter

to fuel up on lattes and iced teas and mochas. They’re happy,

busy, enjoying life, laughing, chatting, and, of course, texting. Two

moms look as if they just got done jogging and sit next to me,

digging into each other’s lives. Another couple just left. They were

all over each other—a typical young couple without a care in the

world. The girl last in line looks sad. Really sad. It makes me

wonder what just happened in her life. And what about the

employees? Are they happy? Some look that way, but others

don’t.

Joy, laughter, coffee, jazz, texting, talking, flirting, friendship,

depression and the hope to be freed from it one day. This is life! I

love it—and so do they.

The place buzzes with life. M eanwhile, I sit here reading

passage after passage after passage, which all say that some of

these people are going to hell. It sickens me to say that, and I can’t

explain how conflicted I feel right now. There are at least a dozen

people within ten feet of me right here, right now, that may end up

in the agony that I’m studying. What do I do? Do I keep writing?

Keep studying? Should I bag this whole book thing and start

building relationships with them? How can I believe these passages

yet sit here silently? I know that some of you have faced this same

conflict. Even as you’re reading this, there are probably people

within a few feet of you who may also go to hell. What will you

do? It could be that the Lord wants you to put the book down.

Coming face-to-face with these passages on hell and asking

these tough questions is a heart-wrenching process.

It forces me back to a sobering reality: This is not just about

doctrine; it’s about destinies. And if you’re reading this book and

wrestling with what the Bible says about hell, you cannot let this

be a mere academic exercise. You must let Jesus’ very real teaching

on hell sober you up. You must let Jesus’ words reconfigure the

way you live, the way you talk, and the way you see the world

and the people around you.

Jesus on Hell

In the last chapter, we took a tour of Jesus’ world and saw that,

without a doubt, first-century Jews believed in hell. They believed

that hell was a place of punishment for the wicked after they faced

God’s judgment. They used various images to describe this hell,

such as fire, darkness, and lamentation. Some Jews believed that

the wicked would be annihilated after being cast into hell, while

others described hell as a place of never-ending torment.

Now, in walks a Jewish rabbi named Yeshua, or Jesus. Based

on everything we know about Jesus, we would expect Him to

address the concept of the afterlife with much more compassion.

Right? We can think of the Pharisees, who seem to have taken

every opportunity to make the Old Testament Law as harsh as

possible. A significant portion of Jesus’ teaching was dedicated to

freeing people from the impossible yoke of the Pharisees. Surely

Jesus backed away from these terrifying images and emphasized

the love of God when talking about the judgment day. Right?

Well, not exactly. In fact, not at all.

Jesus grew up in the world of beliefs described in the last

chapter. He would be expected to believe the same stuff about hell

that most Jews did. And if He didn’t—if Jesus rejected the

widespread Jewish belief in hell—then He would certainly need to

be clear about this.

That last line is very important. Better read it again.

In other words, if Jesus did not agree with the view of hell

presented in the last chapter, then He would have had to

deliberately and clearly argue against it. Remember that Jesus

certainly wasn’t afraid of going against some commonly held

Jewish ideas, such as their view of divorce (M att. 5:32; 19:9),

forgiveness (M att. 18:21–22), wealth (Luke 18—19), and laws

about the Sabbath (M ark 3:1–6). So we can be sure that if Jesus

didn’t challenge the Jewish view of hell, it wasn’t because He was

afraid to.

So let’s pull the focus in from Jesus’ world to what Jesus

Himself actually said about hell. What we’re going to see is that

His views stand in line with the dominant first-century Jewish

view of hell. To show this, we’ll look at Jesus’ words through the

same categories used in the last chapter. For Jesus:

1. Hell is a place of punishment after judgment.

2. Hell is described in imagery of fire and darkness, where

people lament.

3. Hell is a place of annihilation or never-ending

punishment.

Hel Is a Place of Punishment after Judgment

Jesus uses the word gehenna (translated as “hell”) twelve times

in the Gospels. He also uses images of fire and darkness in contexts

where punishment after judgment is in view. A quick look at these

statements shows that Jesus believed, like His Jewish

contemporaries, that a horrific place of punishment awaits the

wicked on judgment day.

The clearest example is M atthew 25:31–46, the longest and

most detailed account of judgment day in the four gospels. Jesus

begins by saying:

“When the Son of M an comes in his glory, and all

the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious

throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations,

and he will separate people one from another as a

shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” (vv.

31–32)

We’ll take a detailed look at this passage toward the end of this

chapter. For now, it’s important to note that the event is judgment

day, which will occur when Christ comes back. After Jesus looks

at the evidence (vv. 33–45), He gives His verdict: Believers are

awarded everlasting life, while unbelievers are awarded everlasting

punishment. Though the word hell (gehenna) is not used here, the

concept of hell is conveyed by the phrases “everlasting fire” (v. 41)

and “everlasting punishment” (v. 46). 1

Another place where the word hell is used in the context of

judgment is M atthew 5. The whole passage talks about the

potentially devastating outcome of going to an earthly court. But

Jesus goes on to say that God’s courtroom will be much worse, for

here the Judge has the power to sentence you to the “hell

[gehenna] of fire” (M att. 5:22). This is not a vague reference to hell

and certainly not a reference to a garbage dump. The legal context

of this statement ensures that Jesus is referring to the

consequences of judgment day.

Here’s one more passage where gehenna is used in the context

of God’s future judgment:

“You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to

escape being sentenced to hell [gehenna]?” (M att.

23:33)

The phrase sentenced to hell is once again reminiscent of

something you would hear in a courtroom. Hell, as we have seen, is

assigned to the wicked (in this case, the scribes and Pharisees) as a

place of punishment. Jesus is not using the word hell to describe

“the very real experiences and consequences of rejecting our God-

given goodness and humanity.” 2 Yes, a life of sin will certainly lead

to some terrible life-experiences—lust destroys relationships, anger

leads to violence, and covetousness leads to divorce. No doubt. But

that’s not what Jesus is talking about here. When Jesus uses stock

phrases like “gehenna of fire” in legal contexts like this one, He

means a literal place of punishment after judgment. He means hell.

Hel Is Described in Imagery of Fire and Darkness

Like His Jewish contemporaries, Jesus often used the image of

fire to describe hell. Here are a couple of examples from M atthew

13. As Jesus tells a parable about “wheat” and “weeds,” He says:

“Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the

harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds

first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but

gather the wheat into my barn.” (v. 30)

By itself, this verse says very little, but Jesus goes on to

explain the parable and clarifies what He means by the burning

weeds:

“Just as the weeds are gathered and burned with

fire, so will it be at the close of the age. The Son of

M an will send his angels, and they will gather out of

his kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers,

and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place

there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then

the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom

of their Father.” (vv. 40–43)3

These are terrifying statements that Jesus makes. It’s difficult

to stomach, but the image of “weeping” as the wicked are cast into

hell (“the fiery furnace”) is common among first-century Jewish

writers. Jesus, again, fits right into His own context by using the

image here. 4

Just a few verses later, Jesus says again:

“So it will be at the close of the age. The angels will

come out and separate the evil from the righteous

and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place

there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. ” (vv.

49–50)

The hell that Jesus describes here is not a hell-on-earth that

accompanies our bad decisions during this life, and it certainly isn’t

the never-ending party that AC/DC describes in their song. Hell is

a place of punishment at the end of the age for “all law-breakers”

who don’t follow Jesus in this life.

Again, Jesus said:

“It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame

than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into

the [everlasting] 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 [gehenna] of fire.” (M att.

18:8–9)

These images of “everlasting fire” and a “hell of fire” were

typical in the first century. Jesus used this common vocabulary to

convey an unmistakable message—no Jew would have scratched

his head wondering what Jesus was getting at. The everlasting fire

of gehenna is a place of punishment for all who don’t follow Jesus

in this life.

Like other Jewish writers of His day, Jesus also used the image

of “darkness” to describe hell. In M atthew 8, He says:

“I tell you, many will come from east and west and

recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in

the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the

kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In

that place there will be weeping and gnashing of

teeth.” (vv. 11–12)

This passage is a critique against Jewish people who think that

their ethnicity can solidify a place in the kingdom. Strikingly, Jesus

says that many Gentiles (those from “east and west”) will come

into the kingdom, while many Jews (the “sons of the kingdom”)

will not enter because they didn’t follow Jesus.5 Jesus uses stock

Jewish images of “outer darkness” and “weeping” to refer to

judgment day and its consequences. Nobody in Jesus’ first-century

world would understand these images of darkness and weeping in

any other way, as we saw in the last chapter.

Jesus used the same imagery at the end of another parable He

told just before He died:

“Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him

hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness.

In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of

teeth.’” (M att. 22:13)

And again, in another parable:

“And cast out the worthless servant into the outer

darkness. In that place there will be weeping and

gnashing of teeth.” (M att. 25:30)

Darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth—these are common

Jewish images for hell. And again Jesus is referring to a place of

punishment, much like His first-century contemporaries. It’s also

important to recognize that there is nothing in these passages that

holds out hope for a second, third, or fourth chance for repentance

after death.

The next category is more difficult to assess. Did Jesus believe

that the wicked would be annihilated or suffer never-ending

punishment in hell?

Hel Is a Place of Annihilation or Never-Ending Punishment

At times, Jesus seems to imply that hell won’t last very long.

“Fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell,” Jesus says

(M att.

10:28). Destroy, not burn forever. This language of

destruction is common not only in Jesus’ words but also

throughout Paul’s letters (see chapter 4). However, there is one

significant passage in which Jesus seems to speak of hell as a place

of never-ending punishment, where unbelievers will suffer horrific,

agonizing pain.

Before we move on, though, let me give two words of warning.

First, I believe it is beneficial to dive into the precise meaning

of Greek words and grammar, but it may be more technical than

some are used to. While the English text is clear, I think it would be

good to show that the Greek text supports our English translation.

The issue at stake is crucial and demands nothing less than

rigorous, humble, and intense study of God’s infallible Word. So

we’ll need to slow down, roll up our sleeves, and dig into some key

texts for the rest of this chapter.

Second, let’s not lose sight of what we’re talking about. If all

we do is believe we’ve figured out the duration of hell and leave

unchanged, then we’ve failed. With that in mind, let’s get back to

the Bible, but with the solemn sense that this is real stuff we’re

reading about. These words have real implications for real people

with real destinies.

On several occasions, Jesus said things that may suggest a

never-ending punishment, though these passages in themselves are

inconclusive. For instance, as we have seen, Jesus says the wicked

will be thrown into “everlasting fire” (M att. 18:8), but is it the fire

or the suffering that is everlasting? The passage doesn’t specify.

Also, in M ark 9, Jesus describes the fire of hell as being

“unquenchable … where their worm does not die” (vv. 44, 48).

This may refer to never-ending punishment, but here, too, we have

to be careful. Jesus is alluding to Isaiah 66:24 with this imagery

(undying worm, unquenchable fire), and Isaiah was probably not

thinking of everlasting punishment. 6 Another passage that is

sometimes cited to prove never-ending punishment is the parable

of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16. But this passage doesn’t

refer to the final state of the wicked—only to a temporary state

where the wicked await judgment. 7

In almost every passage where Jesus mentions hell, He doesn’t

explicitly say that it will last forever. He speaks of torment, and

we get the impression that hell is terrible, that it’s a place to be

avoided at all costs, but He doesn’t clearly tell us how long it will

last.

Jesus’ most suggestive statement—perhaps His only statement

—about the duration of hell comes in M atthew 25. In this passage,

Jesus speaks of the final judgment that will take place at His

second coming (v. 31). The sheep (believers in Jesus) and goats

(unbelievers) are divided in two camps, and Jesus decides who’s

who based on what they’ve done in their lives. The sheep have

served Jesus by clothing the naked, feeding the hungry, giving drink

to the thirsty, and so on, while the goats did none of these things.

Jesus then gives His verdict:

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from

me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared

for the devil and his angels.’” (v. 41)

Jesus reviews their behavior on earth and finds convicting

evidence for their condemnation (vv. 42–44) and then concludes:

“‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of

the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And

these will go away into everlasting punishment, but

the righteous into everlasting life.” (vv. 45–46)

The two key phrases are everlasting fire (v. 41) and everlasting

punishment (v. 46). A simple reading of these phrases seems to

infer that hell is never ending. But before we race to this

conclusion, we’ve got to look closely at the Greek words lying

behind the English translation, because it’s been argued that they

don’t actually mean what the translations say. For instance, some

people who say that hell won’t last forever argue that the Greek

words translated “everlasting punishment”— aionios kolasis— do

not mean that the punishment is never ending. Instead, some have

argued that aionios means “a period of time” while kolasis is a

term from horticulture that means “pruning” or “trimming.” For

example:

An aionios of kolasis. Depending on how you

translate aionios and kolasis, then, the phrase can

mean “a period of pruning” or “a time of trimming,”

or an intense experience of correction. 8

The argument goes like this: The purpose of “correction” or

“pruning,” of course, is to improve something, to bring out its

fullest potential. Or in this context, to correct the wicked of their

bad behavior until they are no longer wicked. So according to this

argument, Jesus is not talking about an everlasting punishment for

the wicked here, but rather a time of correction so that those

enduring punishment will ultimately be saved. 9 During this time, there may be “endless opportunities in an endless amount of time

for people to say yes to God.” 10

Part of me wants to believe that this is true. This argument

appears to reconcile God’s love with Jesus’ harsh words about

hell. But is this what the words aionios kolasis actually mean? Is

this what Jesus is speaking of in M atthew 25:46?

I don’t think so, and here’s why. Let’s first deal with the word

kolasis. Does it refer to correction or punishment? For three

reasons, the word means “punishment.”

First, the word kolasis is only used three other times in the

New Testament, and in all three passages it clearly means

punishment. It is also used in Jewish literature around the time of

the New Testament in the same way. 11 Jesus’ Jewish audience

would have heard Jesus say “punishment” not “correction” when

He said the word kolasis. 12

Second, this “everlasting punishment” ( aionios kolasis) is the

same place as the “everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his

angels” from verse 41. This is where the goats, or unbelievers, are

cast. If one thinks that unbelievers will undergo a time of

correction-to-be-saved in that place, one must also say the same

thing of the Devil and his angels. But this would be a huge stretch,

especially in light of Revelation 19—20, where it says that the

Devil and his angels will be tormented forever and ever. So Jesus

actually says that unbelievers share the same fate as the Devil and

his demons.

Third, as we have seen, Jesus often refers to “hell” or “the

fiery furnace” or “everlasting fire” as a place of retribution—a

place where sinners will be punished for their sins. And Jesus is

not talking about correction in these other passages (M att. 13:41–

42, 49–50). So those who say that hell is corrective must argue that

Jesus has something very different in mind when He talks about

“everlasting fire” and “everlasting kolasis” here in M atthew 25:46.

But this is very unlikely.

I checked ten commentators from different theological

backgrounds and fifteen Bible translations in five different

languages on the word kolasis. I really wanted to see if other Bible

scholars agree with what I said above. I found that they all

translate kolasis with the word “punishment” (or strafe, or castigo,

or

, or

). 13 Translators and commentators

are not infallible, but such a diverse and worldwide consensus

should raise serious caution.

It seems clear that Jesus was referring to an “aionios

punishment” in M atthew 25:46, and not an “aionios correction.”

What about the word aionios? Bible scholars have debated the

meaning of this term for what seems like an eternity, so we’re not

going to settle the issue here. 14 It’s important to note that however

we translate aionios, the passage still refers to punishment for the

wicked, which is something that Universalists deny.

Simply

put, aionios can mean various things, including

“lifelong,” “enduring,” or “everlasting.” When the word is used

twice in M atthew 25:46 (“aionios life” and “aionios punishment”),

it probably means “everlasting” in both cases. 15 I say this for two

reasons.

First, the contrast between “aionios life” and “aionios

punishment” includes the notion of never-ending time. While it is

true that aionios doesn’t always mean “everlasting,” when used

here to describe things in the “age to come,” it probably does have

this meaning. Think about it: Because the life in this age will never

end, given the parallel, it also seems that the punishment in this age

will never end.

Second, the punishment is said to be in the “everlasting

[ aionios] fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (M att. 25:41).

We know from other passages in Scripture that the Devil and his

angels

will

suffer never-ending punishment (Rev. 20:10).

Therefore, when Jesus says that unbelievers will go to the same

place and suffer the same punishment, it logically follows that their

punishment will also never end. 16

So W here Do I Land?

The debate about hell’s duration is much more complex than I

first assumed. While I lean heavily on the side that says it is

everlasting, I am not ready to claim that with complete certainty. I

encourage you to continue researching, but don’t get so caught up

in this debate that you miss the point of what Jesus was trying to

communicate. I even deleted several pages that I wrote about the

issue because I feared it would distract from the heart of Christ’s

message.

Jesus chose strong and terrifying language when He spoke of

hell. I believe He chose to speak this way because He loves us and

wanted to warn us. So let’s not miss the point: He spoke of hell as

a horrifying place, characterized by suffering, fire, darkness, and

lamentation. I believe His intention was to stir a fear in us that

would cause us to take hell seriously and avoid it at all costs.

I was a bit surprised at how many harsh statements Jesus made

about hell. It probably caught me off guard because I am so used to

people emphasizing His words of blessing, not His words of

warning. Some of His words may have shocked you, but I would

like you to consider the following thought:

We are bound by the words of the Creator, the One who will

do what is right. The One who invented justice and knows

perfectly what the unbeliever deserves. God has never asked us to

figure out His justice or to see if His way of doing things is morally

right. He has only asked us to embrace His Word and bow the

knee, to tremble at His word, as Isaiah says (66:2).

Don’t get so lost in deciphering that you forget to tremble.

Notes

1 Despite the ESV’s translation, I will be using the term everlasting instead of eternal, because the latter term technically means

transcending time, which isn’t the best rendering of the Greek

aionios. See the discussion toward the end of this chapter and

in note 14 below.

2 Bell, Love Wins, 73.

3 This will happen at a future time when Christ comes back and everyone will stand before Him in judgment. The righteous will

be resurrected (which is the meaning of “shine like the sun,” cf.

Dan. 12:2), and the wicked will be thrown into the “fiery

furnace,” an image that depicts hell (The two references to the

“fiery furnace” in M atthew 13 are the only times that this

image is used of hell in the New Testament. However,

Revelation 9:2 uses a similar image, where smoke goes up from

a great furnace [R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, 537].).

The phrase gnashing of teeth is used quite often by Jesus (see

M att. 8:12; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Luke 13:28), though we don’t

need to take it literally—as if a toothless unbeliever will have

teeth provided on judgment day. The phrase probably depicts

the pain that the wicked will experience in hell.

4 See e.g., 1 En. 108:3–5; 2 En. 40:12.

5 In the New Testament, the kingdom has both a present and

future aspect. M any times the idea of entering the kingdom

refers to something that happens in the present. Other times

the idea refers to something that will happen after death or

after the second coming of Christ. In this passage (M att. 8),

it’s the future aspect of entering the kingdom that is in view.

6 In Isaiah’s context, the worm doesn’t die as it eats the flesh of dead bodies. There’s nothing in the context that says the souls

of the dead are still being tormented. The image of worms

feasting on unburied dead people emphasizes the shame of

defeat.

7 The parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19–31) says that the rich man goes to “Hades” while Lazarus goes to

“Abraham’s bosom” (NASB). Hades here should not be

confused with hell. Hades is where the wicked go to await their

judgment, after which they are thrown into hell—their final

state. Lazarus is also in some sort of intermediate state where

he is waiting for his resurrection. Significantly, the rich man,

who’s in hades, is “in agony in this flame” (16:24 NASB), and

he’s very aware of it. M oreover, Jesus says that there is a

chasm that separates the wicked from the righteous and “none

may cross from there to us” (16:26). So this passage affirms

that there will be some sort of punishment and torment for the

wicked immediately upon death, and there is no sign that these

situations can be reversed. This intermediate state for the

wicked should not be confused with the Roman Catholic

doctrine of purgatory, which has a very different function from

what we see in Luke 16. So Luke 16 doesn’t refer to the

duration of hell.

Now, it’s true that this is a parable, and so we shouldn’t

press the details too far. Jesus uses the parable in this context

of Luke to confront the social structures of the day, not to

teach us about the afterlife. On the flip side, parables do

convey truth—real things about real life for real people. And

given the fact that at least some first-century Jewish people

believed that there would be real pain and torment in hades

(and not just in gehenna or “hell”), Jesus was probably

assuming this view here as well. According to Josephus, the

Pharisees believed that the righteous receive rewards and the

wicked receive punishment immediately after they die ( Ant.

18.14). Also, 4 Ezra 7:78–87 (ca. AD 100) says that there will

be punishment in the intermediate sate (i.e., hades).

8 Bell, Love Wins, 91. Bell’s original quote transliterated the Greek words as aion (a noun) and kalazo (a verb). But the Greek

actually has aionios (an adjective) and kolasis (a noun). For

clarity, I changed the words in Bell’s quote to reflect the Greek

of M atthew. New Testament scholar William Barclay also says

t hat kolasis “originally meant the pruning of trees to make

them grow better. I think it is true to say that in all Greek

secular literature kolasis is never used of anything but remedial

punishment” ( A Spiritual Autobiography [Grand Rapids, M I:

Eerdmans, 1977], 66). But see note 11 below.

9 Bell, Love Wins, 92–93.

10 Ibid., 106–107.

11 The noun is used in 1 John 4:18. Here, John says that “there is

no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to

do with punishment ( kolasis).” The context here is “the day of

judgment” (v. 17), and John is contrasting love with fear. Love

enables one to be confident on the day of judgment (v. 17),

while fear instills that nagging sense that one will receive

punishment ( kolasis) on the day of judgment. The sense of

“correction” wouldn’t make sense. The verb form of kolasis

( kolazo) is used two times in the New Testament: Acts 4:21

and 2 Peter 2:9. Both of these contexts demand that the word

be translated “punishment.” For its use in Jewish literature, see

especially Wis. 16:1–2, where the verb kolazo is used

synonymously with the verb basanizo, which means torment.

Retributive punishment is clearly in view. See also T. Reub.

5 :5 ; T. Gad 7:5 (though these texts have been edited by

Christians). A related Hebrew expression is used throughout

the Dead Sea Scrolls to mean punishment as well (see 1QS

2:15; 5:13; 1QM 1:5; 9:5–6; 4Q510 1:7). See W. D. Davies and

Dale C. Allison Jr., Matthew (The International Critical

Commentary) (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2004), 3.432.

12 Of course, Jesus would have used the Aramaic equivalent to

this word, but this is the Greek word that M atthew (under the

inspiration of the Holy Spirit) used to translate Jesus’ word.

13 Commentaries: Leon M orris, The Gospel According to Matthew

(Piller New Testament Commentary) (Grand Rapids, M I:

Eerdmans, 1992), 641; Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3.432; R.

T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, 966–967; D. A. Hagner,

Matthew 14—28 (Word Biblical Commentary 33b) (Nashville,

TN: Thomas Nelson, 1995), 2.746; Craig Keener, A

Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, M I:

Eerdmans, 1999), 606; Ulrich Luz, Matthew: A Commentary,

trans. W. C. Linss (M inneapolis, M N.: Augsburg Fortress

Press, 2005), 282; Grant Osborne, Matthew: Exegetical

Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, M I:

Zondervan, 2010), 938–939; D. A. Carson, Matthew (The

Expositor’s Bible Commentary) (Grand Rapids, M I:

Zondervan, 2010), 586–587; Robert M ounce, Matthew (New

International

Biblical

Commentary)

(Peabody,

M A:

Hendrickson, 1991), 236–237; M ichael Wilkins, Matthew (The

NIV Application Commentary) (Grand Rapids, M I:

Zondervan, 2004), 812–813. Translations: ESV, TNIV, NASB,

HCSB, NKJV, NLT, CEB, AMP, CEV, GNT . Foreign translations:

Hoffnung für Alle; Nueva Traducción Viviente; Slovo Zhizny;

Chinese Union Version (Traditional and Simplified). The

Message has “eternal doom,” which is essentially the same

thing.

14 The Greek word aionios is an adjective, and it’s used seventy times in the New Testament. The noun, aion, is used over one

hundred times in the New Testament. The noun can mean

various things such as “an age” or “era” (M att. 13:39; 28:20;

Heb. 9:26; 1 Cor. 10:11), “the world” (M ark 4:19), and the

never-ending “age” to come, as it does so often in John’s gospel

(John 4:14; 6:51, 58; 8:35, 51; 10:28; 11:26; 12:34; 14:16). The

adject ive aionios frequently means “everlasting,” denoting

never-ending time. We see this sense in the phrase “everlasting

life” ( aionios zoe) used so often in the New Testament (M att.

19:16; Luke 10:25; 16:9; Rom. 2:7; 5:21; 6:22; 16:25; Gal. 6:8;

1 Tim. 1:16; 6:12, 16; 2 Tim. 2:10; Jude 21). This

understanding of time does not refer to the Platonic notion of

timelessness, which is inherent in the term eternity, but to the

duration of the age to come—a vibrant Jewish concept of the

future. Because this age to come will last forever, the adjective

aionios, when describing this age, often connotes this idea of

“everlasting” as well. For a full and quite technical discussion,

see Joachim Guhrt, “Time,” in Colin Brown, ed., New

International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (Grand

Rapids, M I: Zondervan, 1986): 3.826–33; Hermann Sasse,

“aion, aionios,” in Gerhard Kittel, ed., Theological Dictionary

of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, M I: Eerdmans, 1985),

1.197–209. I thank Drs. Simon Gathercole of Cambridge

University and Scott Hafemann of St. Andrews for their very

helpful and critical comments on previous drafts of this

discussion of aionios.

15 Contra Bell, Love Wins, 91–92.

16 The way the Greek words are used here suggests a never-ending

punishment. The word aionios modifies the nature of the

punishment, not the results of the punishment. This is an

important distinction, because some people say that it’s only

the results of the punishment that never end. In other words,

some say that the wicked will be annihilated as they are

punished, and this annihilation is never-ending in the sense that

its results cannot be reversed. But aionios modifies kalasis,

which is a noun of action (the root is kolasis). Greek nouns

that end with – sis (rather than – ma) tend to focus on the action

of the noun rather than its results. For the small handful of

people still reading this note, you can look at 2 Thess. 2:16 in

the Greek to see a parallel, where aionios modifies paraklesis

(“comfort”), another – sis ending noun of action. Here again, it

is the never-ending act of comforting that is in view.

Chapter 4

What Jesus’ Followers Said about Hell

As we saw in the last chapter, Jesus agreed with His Jewish

contemporaries about the realities of hell. But what about the

people who came after Jesus? Did they imitate His example in

speaking openly about the punishment of the wicked? This is a

very important question to answer for a couple of reasons. First, it

makes it much easier to come to conclusions if other New

Testament writers made statements similar to those of Jesus.

Second, it helps us understand the example that was set for us. In

other words, if Jesus and His early followers spoke boldly about

hell, then shouldn’t we do the same?

So in this chapter, we will explore some other books and letters

in the New Testament and see what they say about hell.

Hell in the Letters of Paul, Peter, and Jude

We’ll start by examining Paul’s view of hell. But the first thing to

notice is that he never used the word. Did you get that? Paul never

in all of his thirteen letters used the word hell. If you only focused

on that one truth, you might conclude that Paul avoided the issue.

And yet, Paul referred to the fate of the wicked more than any

other New Testament writer did. Though he never used the actual

word hell, he did speak of “death” as the result of sin, whereby the

wicked would “perish” or “be destroyed” by the “wrath” of God.

The sinner, according to Paul, stands “condemned” and will be

“judged” by God on account of his sin. And unless the sinner

repents and turns to Christ, he will be “punished” by God when

Christ returns. Paul described the fate of the wicked with words

such as “perish, destroy, wrath, punish,” and others more than

eighty times in his thirteen letters. 1 To put this in perspective, Paul made reference to the fate of the wicked more times in his

letters than he mentioned God’s forgiveness, mercy, or heaven

combined. 2 So even though Paul never used the actual word hell, nor did he describe the place with any detail, he assuredly believed

that the wicked will face a horrific fate if they remain in their sin.

One would have to be creative and work hard to erase all

notions of wrath and punishment from the letters of Paul.

I have always been convicted by Paul’s efforts to reach

unbelievers. At times, I have even felt guilty when reading of the

suffering he endured in sharing the gospel. When I read what he

writes about the punishment of the wicked, it helps me understand

how he stayed so motivated. Could it be that his drive to reach the

lost was directly related to his willingness to ponder their fate if he

didn’t reach them at all? It sure appears so.

This would explain Paul’s strange sermon in Acts 17. In this

chapter, we find Paul standing before a strictly pagan (rather than

Jewish) audience, who wouldn’t have had any knowledge of Jesus,

the Old Testament, the God of Israel, or any other connecting

points to the gospel. Paul stands up, and he’s got only minutes to

deliver a message, to share the good news with them. What does he

do? He speaks of judgment. He mentions plenty of other things,

and he even quotes a few of their own poets (v. 28), but when it

came to the punch line, Paul told them that God would judge them

if they didn’t repent:

“God … commands all people everywhere to

repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will

judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he

has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to

all by raising him from the dead.” (vv. 30–31)

There’s no cross, no atonement, no forgiveness, no conversion

testimony, and no God-loves-you-and-has-a-wonderful-plan-for-

your-life. Not that these things are unnecessary—Paul himself will

talk about these on other occasions. But what these people needed

to hear most was that Jesus has been raised from the dead and was

going to judge them if they didn’t repent.

Like most of you, I get annoyed at those street preachers who

carry on about wrath and judgment—I wish they’d talk more about

grace and love. Sometimes I wonder if they do more harm than

good. Yet as I sit back and arrogantly judge their effectiveness, I

must admit that Paul’s sermon in Acts 17 sounds an awful lot like

the preacher I heard screaming at the beach last week!

The point is this: While much of our church culture believes

that talk of wrath and judgment is toxic and unloving, Paul didn’t

seem to have a problem with these things. In fact, Paul believed

that these were essential truths. Similar to John the Baptist and

Jesus, Paul believed that warning people of the wrath to come was

actually loving. If my two-year-old son runs out into the street, is

it unloving to warn him of the destruction coming in the form of a

Chevy 4x4? Does anyone criticize the fireman for waking up a

family to rescue them from a burning house? Does anyone blame a

doctor for telling a person that he has cancer that must be treated if

he is going to live?

No doubt, many Christians have abused the ideas of judgment

and wrath. One of the first sermons I ever understood, I heard

when I was twelve years old. A preacher screamed from stage

about the horrors of hell. He then warned us not to reject Jesus—

and his exact words were, “It would be better for you to bite your

tongue off and spit it out!” We have probably all been exposed to

one of those preachers, who can’t wait to tell everyone to repent,

who only talks about judgment and wrath, yet never mentions

love, forgiveness, compassion, and mercy. The Bible paints a much

bigger picture of God, life, and the gospel than mere judgment and

the need for repentance. Remember, it’s “good” news.

But just because some have swung the pendulum so far in the

direction of wrath and judgment, let’s not swing it back too far the

other direction and do away with what Scripture emphasizes. God

is compassionate and just, loving and holy, wrathful and forgiving.

We can’t sideline His more difficult attributes to make room for the

palatable ones.

Now back to Paul.

I said earlier that Paul never wrote about the details of hell.

However, there is one passage where he comes pretty close—a

passage blistering with passion and urgency about Christ’s second

coming and the wrath that follows:

God considers it just to repay with affliction those

who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are

afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is

revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in

flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do

not know God and on those who do not obey the

gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the

punishment of eternal destruction, away from the

presence of the Lord and from the glory of his

might. (2 Thess. 1:6–9)

There are several things to note in this passage. First, the wrath

of Jesus here is retributive and not corrective. In other words, the

wrath isn’t intended to correct the behavior of those opposing

Christ to make them fit for salvation. Rather, the wrath is an act of

—dare I say—vengeance. In fact, this is the exact word that Paul

uses. Christ will “inflict vengeance on those who do not know

God” and don’t “obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.” 3 Second, in

light of this last phrase, Paul doesn’t have a select group of people

in view. Those who don’t know God or obey the gospel include

everyone not following Jesus. No matter how innocent some

people may seem, Paul says that if they don’t know God or obey

the gospel, they will face God’s vengeful wrath when Jesus

returns. 4

As I read those verses, I am struck by how allergic I am to

repeating the very words that Paul wrote. Affliction, vengeance,

punishment, destruction—for all who don’t follow Jesus. I’m not

sure if I have ever used the term vengeance in describing the fate of

unbelievers. In my desire to distance myself from sadistic

Christians who revel in the idea of wrath and punishment, I may

have crossed a line. Refusing to teach a passage of Scripture is just

as wrong as abusing it.

I really believe it’s time for some of us to stop apologizing for

God and start apologizing to Him for being embarrassed by the

ways He has chosen to reveal Himself.

Hell in 2 Peter and Jude

Apart from those of Paul, two other letters speak extensively of

wrath and judgment. In fact, 2 Peter 2 alone looks like a chapter

out of Dante’s Inferno, while the book of Jude reads like a

medieval tract written to scare peasants into unwavering church

attendance and a steady tithe. These books together speak of

“destruction” (2 Peter 2:1, 3, 12; 3:7, 9; Jude 5, 10, 11),

“punishment” (2 Peter 2:9; Jude 7), “judgment” (2 Peter 2:4, 9;

Jude 4), “condemnation” (2 Peter 2:3; Jude 4), “hell” 5 (2 Peter 2:4), and retributive suffering (2 Peter 2:13) that await the ungodly who

don’t follow Jesus. Hell is described as “the gloom of utter

darkness” (2 Peter 2:17; Jude 13) and the “punishment of eternal

fire” (Jude 7, 23), terms that would be very familiar, as we have

seen, in the authors’ Jewish contexts. 6

Now, these books emphasize that hell is reserved for evil

angels and false teachers, who indulge in fleshly desires and distort

the gospel for financial gain (2 Peter 2:1, 4, 15–16). But both

authors affirm that the same punishment is in store for all

unrighteous people (2 Peter 2:9; Jude 14–15). As much as these

terrifying images of wrath and hell are unpleasant to read, they do

capture an important part of the Christian message: God will

severely punish those who don’t bow the knee to King Jesus.

Hell in Revelation

But even 2 Peter and Jude don’t match John’s description of hell in

the book of Revelation. So to the final book we turn.

The first passage where we see a depiction of hell is Revelation

14. Speaking of the final judgment of God, the author writes:

“If anyone worships the beast and its image and

receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he

also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full

strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be

tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the

holy angels and in the presence … of the Lamb.

And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and

ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these

worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever

receives the mark of its name.” (vv. 9–11)

The idea of “God’s wrath” and “anger,” along with the image of

being “tormented with fire and sulfur … forever and ever,” is

terrifying. 7 But that seems to be an important theme in Revelation:

God’s wrath is terrifying! John isn’t trying to resolve the tension

between this potent imagery of punishment and the loving God

who dies for His enemies as described in Romans 5. Instead, John

gives us a powerful warning: Don’t oppose God!

M ost terrifying is the nature of the punishment—it’s ongoing

with no end in sight. Not only does John say that people will be

“tormented with fire” (rather than destroyed), 8 but he goes on to say that the smoke of their torment goes up “forever and ever.”

And just to drive home the point, he adds the phrase “they have

no rest, day or night.” 9

Again, it’s very easy to get caught up in arguments and word

studies and theological views, and yet miss the main point. This is

real. We’re talking about the fate of actual people. Let’s keep that

in mind as we look at one more passage in Revelation.

In the final chapters of the book, we are given a picture of what

will happen after Christ comes back. John depicts a blessed, never-

ending age of peace, joy, and victory for all who “follow the

Lamb.” No death, no sadness, no fear, no evil, no pain, no tears—

only an ongoing blissful life with the Creator in His new creation

(21:1; 22:1–2). This is the destiny of all who follow Him.

But there is also a future for all who don’t follow Him. Here’s

how the author describes it:

The devil who had deceived them was thrown into

the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the

false prophet were, and they will be tormented day

and night forever and ever. (Rev. 20:10)

As you read that verse, keep in mind that the Devil is one of

God’s created beings. Sometimes we hide behind questions like

“how could a good God create someone and then torment that

person forever?” Yet few people deny that He does this to Satan.

Some even rejoice in this. John then describes a judgment scene

where he sees

the dead, great and small, standing before the throne,

and books were opened … and the dead were judged

by what was written in the books, according to

what they had done … and they were judged, each

one of them, according to what they had done. Then

Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if

anyone’s name was not found written in the book

of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (20:12–

15)

Even though it’s the Devil, beast, and false prophet who will

be “tormented day and night forever and ever” in the lake of fire,

John says that unbelievers go to the same place. If they go to the

same place, they probably suffer the same fate—never-ending

punishment in the lake of fire. John says again in the next chapter,

But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the

detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral,

sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will

be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which

is the second death. (21:8)

The lake of fire is the final destiny for both the Devil and

unbelievers. We have already seen that the phrase “tormented day

and night forever and ever” refers to a never-ending punishment for

the wicked. The same phrase “forever and ever” is used to describe

the “reign” of God’s people, which will never end (Rev. 22:5).

This is further supported by Revelation 22:14 where those

redeemed by Christ (i.e., “those who wash their robes”) live in the

new creation, while “outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the

sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who

loves and practices falsehood” (v. 15). This passage depicts an

ongoing separation between believers who live in the presence of

God (v. 14) and unbelievers who live “outside,” or apart from the

presence of God in the new creation.

So why is the lake of fire called the second “death” if its

punishment is ongoing? Doesn’t this point to a final annihilation

and not an ongoing torment for the wicked? While the word death

itself could suggest finality, it is often used throughout the New

Testament in a more metaphorical (nonliteral) sense. For instance,

New Testament writers often refer to unbelievers as “dead”

(referring to their spiritual state), even though they are physically

alive (Luke 15:24, 32; Eph. 2:1, 12; Col. 2:13). Also, we already

saw that the phrases forever and ever, torment, and day and night

(Rev. 14:10–11; 20:10) point to something that has no end in sight.

So it seems best to understand the word death not in terms of total

annihilation but as a description of those who will be separated

from God forever in an ongoing state of punishment.

An ongoing … state … of punishment …

For all who don’t love Jesus.

What causes my heart to ache right now as I’m writing this is

that my life shows little evidence that I actually believe this. Every

time my thoughts wander to the future of unbelievers, I quickly

brush them aside so they don’t ruin my day. But there is a reality

here that I can’t ignore. Even as the conversations of people around

me fill my ears, the truth of Scripture penetrates my heart with

sobering statements about their destinies. We can talk about the

fate of some hypothetical person, but as I look up and see their

smiles, I have to ask myself if I really believe what I have written

in this book. Hell is for real. Am I?

I would love to think, as some have suggested, that the Bible

doesn’t actually say a whole lot about hell. I would love to stare at

my friend’s face when he asked that question we all fear— “Do

you think I’m going to hell?”—and say “No! There is no such

place! Jesus loves you and wants to heal your pain and turn your

sorrows into gladness!”

But the New Testament writers didn’t have the same allergic

reaction to hell as I do. Perhaps they had a view of God that is

much bigger than mine. A view of God that takes Him at His word

and doesn’t try to make Him fit our own moral standards and

human sentimentality. A view of God that believes what He says,

even when it doesn’t make perfect sense to us.

Notes

1 Here’s the references for the individual words: “death” or “die”

(Greek: apothnesko, thanatos; Rom. 1:32; 5:12, 14, 15, 17, 21;

6:16, 21, 23; 7:5, 9, 10, 11, 13; 8:2, 6, 13; 1 Cor. 15:21, 22; 2

Cor. 2:16; 3:6, 7; 7:10; Eph. 2:1); “perish,” “destroy,”

“destruction” (Greek: apollymi, apoleia, olethros, phthora;

Rom. 2:12; 9:22; 14:15, 20; 1 Cor. 1:18; 15:18; 2 Cor. 2:15; 4:3;

Gal. 6:8; Phil. 1:28; 3:19; 1 Thess. 5:3; 2 Thess. 1:9; 2:10; 1

Tim. 6:9); “wrath” (Greek: orge, thymos; Rom. 1:18; 2:5, 8;

3:5; 5:9; 9:22; Eph. 2:3; 5:6; Col. 3:6; 1 Thess. 1:10; 2:16; 5:9);

“condemn,” “condemnation,” or “judge” (Greek: several words

with the root krin-; Rom. 2:1, 2, 3, 5, 12; 3:7, 8; 5:16, 18; 8:1; 1

Cor. 11:32; 2 Cor. 3:9; 2 Thess. 2:12; 1 Tim. 5:24); “curse,”

“cursed” (Greek: anathema, katara; Rom. 9:3; Gal. 1:8, 9;

3:10, 13; 1 Cor. 12:3; 16:22); “punish” (Greek: ekdikos,

ekdikesis, dike; 1 Thess. 4:6; 2 Thess. 1:8, 9). For all these

references, see Douglas M oo, “Paul on Hell,” in Christopher

W. M organ and Robert A. Peterson, eds., Hell Under Fire:

Modern Scholarship Reinvents Eternal Punishment (Grand

Rapids, M I: Zondervan, 2004), 92–93.

2 Paul uses Greek words (verbs and nouns) for “mercy” twenty-seven times, “forgiveness” seven times, and the noun “heaven”

twenty-one times. This word search was performed through

the recent (and quite excellent) Bible program Scroll Tag

(ScrollTag.com).

3 Paul here is alluding to Isaiah 66:14–16, where God will “show his indignation against his enemies” (v. 14), “render his anger in

fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire” (v. 15), and “by fire

will the LORD enter into judgment … with all flesh” (v. 16).

The aftermath is sobering: “those slain by the LORD shall be

many” (v. 16). Throughout this passage, Isaiah describes God’s

future punishment of those who reject Him. God will “choose

harsh treatment for” those who “did not listen” to God’s offer

of salvation (v. 4).

4 In this passage, Paul uses the phrase everlasting destruction.

Does this mean Paul affirms that unbelievers will live forever in

never-ending torment? Or does he mean that unbelievers will be

annihilated when Christ comes back? This verse is not crystal

clear, and anyone who thinks it is needs a good dose of

interpretative humility. On the one hand, the word destruction

seems to speak of annihilation. But Paul says it’s “everlasting,”

so some have said that Paul is thinking of never-ending

punishment in hell. However, as we have seen, the word

everlasting ( aionios) doesn’t always mean “never-ending.”

Even if it does mean never-ending here, it would seem to make

better sense that the “never ending-ness” speaks of the results

or effects of the destruction rather than its ongoing act. In other

words, I don’t think Paul is referring to the never-ending

process of God “destroying but not completely destroying”

the wicked in hell here. At least Paul’s words here don’t clearly

convey this notion. Neither, however, does Paul clearly say

that the wicked will be annihilated and will not suffer ongoing

punishment. There is evidence that first-century writers use

phrases like eternal destruction and actually do mean the act of

punishment that never ends. Therefore, while Paul makes a

clear point about punishment, vengeance, retribution, and

wrath, he doesn’t speak unambiguously about the duration of

this wrath.

5 The word Peter uses for “hell” here is the Greek tartarus. This term is used in Greek mythology to refer to the place where

giants such as Cyclopes and the Titans were cast. Tartarus is

also used in Hellenistic, or Greek, branches of Judaism, as seen,

for instance, in the Septuagint of Job (40:20; 41:24), Proverbs

(30:16), and other early Jewish writers (e.g., Sib. Or. 4:186; 1

En. 20:2; Philo, Mos. 2.433; Praem. 152). For a discussion, see

Richard Bauckham, 2 Peter and Jude (Word Bible Commentary

50) (Waco, TX: Word, 1983), 249.

6 As with Paul, I don’t think Peter and Jude are very clear about

the duration of hell. On the one hand, both books are laced with

the language of destruction, which in itself suggests

annihilation. On the other hand, the phrase punishment of

eternal fire (Jude 7, 23) could refer to ongoing torment, though,

as we have seen before, it doesn’t have to. Therefore, again, I

think we have to be cautious about pressing the language to

support either annihilation or never-ending punishment. In any

case, neither book holds out hope that those who meet God’s

wrath in the end with have other opportunities after this to

repent and be saved.

7 The identity of the beast and its followers is widely disputed.

Some say that the beast refers to Rome, and its followers are

those who wave the Roman flag, so to speak. Others say it’s

the worldly systems and those who embraced them throughout

all time. Still others say that the beast is some infamous leader:

Hitler, Saddam, bin Laden, and even the Pope are among the

top candidates. (I personally think this approach is

wrongheaded.) For our purpose, it’s not that important to

settle on this issue. The beast and its followers under any view

refer to those who are not on the side of Jesus, whether in the

first century, all centuries, or the final days before Christ

comes back. The author here is speaking quite simply of

unbelievers. This is confirmed by later passages that refer to

unbelievers facing God’s future judgment (see Rev. 20:15;

21:8).

8 The word for “torment,” basanismos, is never used in Revelation nor in the entire Bible to refer to the annihilation of personal

existence. In Revelation, it always refers to conscious suffering

(see Rev. 9:5; 11:10; 12:2; 18:7, 10, 15; 20:10; G. K. Beale, The

Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text [New

International Greek Testament Commentary] [Grand Rapids,

M I: Eerdmans, 1998], 762; contra Edward Fudge, Fire That

Consumes: A Biblical Case for Conditional Immortality, 2nd

ed., rev. Peter Cousins [Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1994], 304–

307).

9 The phrase forever and ever is used twelve other times in Revelation, eleven of which clearly refer to something that

never ends—such as the existence of God, which is “forever

and ever” (Rev. 10:6; 15:7). For all the uses of the phrase in

Revelation, see 1:6, 18; 4:9, 10; 5:13; 7:12; 10:6; 11:15; 15:7;

19:3; 20:10; 22:5. For the use of the phrase in the New

Testament, see Galatians 1:5; Ephesians 3:21; Philippians 4:20;

1 Timothy 1:17; 2 Timothy 4:18; Hebrews 13:21; 1 Peter 4:11;

see David Aune, Revelation 6—16 (Word Bible Commentary

52B) (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1998), 836. The never-

ending nature of the punishment is further supported by the

p hrase they have no rest, day or night. Therefore, while the

phrase forever and ever in itself could refer to the intensity of

the punishment and not the duration (see Revelation 19:3

where it may refer to the intensity), its dominant use in

Revelation and the context of 14:9–11 supports the notion of a

never-ending punishment. M oreover, the parallel passage in

20:10–15 refers to a never-ending punishment and uses similar

terms to do so. As we will see, this latter passage says that the

Devil and false prophet will be “thrown into the lake of fire

and sulfur” where they will be “tormented night and day

forever and ever” (Rev. 20:10). And this is the same place

where all the wicked will go (Rev. 20:15). Both passages,

Revelation 14 and 20, have the phrases torment, night and day,

and forever and ever, which suggest that they are speaking of

the same ongoing punishment.

Chapter 5

What Does This Have to Do with Me?

If you’re a Christian and wondering what all of this has to do with

you, keep reading.

The other morning, I woke up to start writing as I’ve been

doing for the past few weeks, and I decided to do something

different. I closed my laptop and just read through all of these

passages on hell.

I didn’t think about writing; I didn’t try to figure out all the

nitty-gritty details of the text. I just let the New Testament speak

in its power and simplicity, and here are some of the shocking

things that God hit me with.

You Fool

Jesus threatens hell to those who curse their brother (M att. 5:22).

He’s not warning drinkers or smokers or murderers. Jesus preaches

hellfire against those who have the audacity to attack a fellow

human being with harsh words. It’s ironic—frightening, actually—

that some people have written books, preached sermons, or

written blog posts about hell and missed this point completely. In

fact, some people have slammed their Christian brothers and

sisters in the process, simply because they have a different view of

hell, missing the purpose of M atthew 5: Whoever calls his brother

a fool may find himself guilty of hell.

Have you called your brother a fool lately? On a blog? On

Facebook? Have you tweeted anything of the sort?

So often these hell passages become fodder for debate, and

people miss the point of the warning. Jesus didn’t speak of hell so

that we could study, debate, and write books about it. He gave us

these passages so that we would live holy lives. Stop slandering

one another, and live in peace and brotherly unity. Jesus evidently

hates it when we tear into our brothers or sisters with demeaning

words, words that fail to honor the people around us as the

beautiful image-bearing creatures that they are.

But Jesus, Didn’t We …

And how about M atthew 7, probably the scariest passage on hell

in the entire Bible? The most horrific word in this passage isn’t

hell; it isn’t fire, furnace, everlasting, gloom, darkness, worms, or

torment. In fact, none of these words occur in this passage. The

most frightening word is many. Jesus says, “Many will say to M e

on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and

in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many

miracles?’” (M att. 7:22 NASB). This is judgment day. This is the

end. There are no second chances. This is the last peaceful breath

that “many” will breathe before they spend the rest of their life in

hell. Put yourself there for a second. Fast-forward your life to that

day. Will you sound like the many who call out in desperation,

“Lord, Lord, did I not ___________ and _____________ and

______________ in Your name?”

How will Jesus respond to your laundry list of Christian

activities—your Easter services, tithe, Bible studies, church

potlucks, and summer-camp conversions? Are you sure you’re on

the right side? What evidence do you have that you know Jesus?

Please understand my heart. I believe I am asking these questions

for the same reason that Jesus gives the warning. It’s the most

loving thing I can do! “M any” will go to hell even though they

thought they’d waltz into paradise. Jesus will say, “I never knew

you; depart from me” (M att. 7:23).

From Every Tribe and Tongue

Or take racism. The Christian church in many ages and in many

places has stood on the wrong side of this issue, and it’s damnable

—literally. What’s racism got to do with hell? you may ask.

According to Jesus, it’s got everything to do with it. In M atthew

8, Jesus smuggles a warning about hell into the context of racism

and ethnocentrism (the belief that your ethnicity is superior). The

entire context of M atthew 8—9 depicts Jesus reversing all of the

cultural and social assumptions of the Jews of that day. One

assumption is that the Jews, as the “people of God,” are much

more fit for the kingdom than all those other nasty sinners—those

Gentiles, those Greeks, those Romans. But in M atthew 8, Jesus is

absolutely floored by the faith of a Roman Gentile military leader.

This leader of high standing had the faith and humility to submit to

the authority of Jesus. And Jesus accepted him as he is, as a

Gentile. From this encounter, Jesus spins out a short message

about many people of all nations and colors and ethnicities that

will flood into the kingdom. And it is here that Jesus says that the

“sons of the kingdom” who think that God values one ethnicity

over another (in this case, the Jewish people) are damned to hell:

“The sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness;

in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (M att.

8:12 NASB). The teeth that once gnashed at the person of another

race or color will gnash in the agony of eternal torment.

Why is it that only 5.5 percent of American evangelical

churches could be considered multiethnic (where no single ethnicity

makes up more than 80 percent of its congregants)? 1 Why is that?

Five and a half percent! And we’re supposed to be living in the

melting pot, the place where hundreds of languages and colors

often live within a few miles—or feet—of each other. What’s so

sad about this is that many people outside the church are far less

racially divided. Consider the military, our places of work, or

athletics. Yet there are three places where racial division still

persists: bars, prisons, and the American evangelical church.

We need to see the glaring contradiction in saying we believe in

hell while making no effort to tear down the walls of racism and

ethnic superiority. If we’re going to take Jesus’ words seriously,

we have to make a more concerted effort to forge avenues of racial

reconciliation and unity under the banner of the gospel of Christ.

One day, Christ will come back and there will be an amazing

worship celebration—with African bongos, Indian sitars, and an

ensemble of M ariachi trumpets—where every tribe, tongue, nation,

and color will bow the knee to their King and celebrate! If this

sounds irritating, then go back and read M atthew 8. It’s written for

you.

Blessed Are the Poor

And what about the poor? While Jesus is ambiguous at times about

the nature and duration of hell, He’s crystal clear about the

necessity of reaching the poor. Yet many hellfire preachers are

overfed and overpaid, living in luxury while doing nothing for the

majority of Christians who live on less than two dollars a day. 2

Contrast that with Jesus, who in His longest sermon about

judgment made helping the poor a vital criterion of who goes

where.

Put simply, failing to help the poor could damn you to hell. I

know, I know, everyone wants to qualify this. We want to add all

sorts of footnotes to fix Jesus’ shaky theology in M atthew 25—

justification is by faith, not by works; you don’t really have to

help literal poor people, etc. But it’s ironic that some will fight

tooth and nail for the literalness of Jesus’ words about hell in this

passage, yet soften Jesus’ very clear words about helping the

poor.3

On the flip side, some want to keep the stuff about helping the

poor but take hell out of the picture. Sometimes people even take

Jesus out of the picture—fighting poverty, they believe, is an

inherent virtue whether or not it’s rooted in the gospel.

Why do we assume that it must be one or the other? Let’s keep

the teeth of both truths. There’s a literal hell, and helping the poor

is essential. Not only did Jesus teach both of these truths, He saw

them as necessary and interrelated.

The Tongue of Fire

James doesn’t say much about hell in his short epistle. In fact, the

word hell only occurs once. But this one instance is directed right

at me, a teacher of the Bible. In the context of warning teachers that

they will incur a stricter judgment (James 3:1), James says that the

tongue is capable of burning up an entire forest (v. 5). “The tongue

is a fire,” James says, and it is ignited by the fire of hell (v. 6).

Again, think teachers, those who stand up and communicate God’s

Word to God’s people. It is for this context that James reserves his

only warning about hell. He doesn’t warn drunks, thieves, or

adulterers about going to hell. No doubt James agrees that sinners

of all sorts will go to hell, but for some sobering reason he saves his

only explicit—and quite scathing—warning about hell for teachers

of God’s Word.

The same goes for 2 Peter and Jude. As we saw in the last

chapter, these short letters are full of hellfire and emphasize that

hell is a place for false teachers—those who claim to be speaking

for God but are really only speaking for themselves. According to

Peter and Jude, these teachers are among us, exploiting us with

false words. They indulge the flesh, despise authority, are greedy

and hypocritical—and they lead many astray. They speak a lot

about God, but the gods they really delight in are their own bellies

and wallets. Peter and Jude say they are heading for hell.

Lukewarm and Loving It

The most terrifying images of hell occur, as we have seen, in the

book of Revelation. But let’s remember the context in which John

writes this book. This isn’t an evangelistic tract written for

unbelievers—the hell passages here weren’t designed to make

converts and scare people into the kingdom. They were designed to

warn believers to keep the faith in the midst of adversity. In fact,

the descriptions of hell in Revelation 14 and 20—21 were first

written with the seven churches of Revelation 2—3 in mind. In

these churches, there were those who had left their first love (Rev.

2:4), followed the heresy of false teachers (v. 20), and become

complacent and “lukewarm” because of the earthly wealth they

hoarded (3:15–17). It is to these types of people—people who

confess Jesus with their lips but deny Him by their actions—that

God reserves the most scathing descriptions of hellfire and

brimstone.

I hate to sound as if I’m always singling out the church in

America, but it’s where I live. And I have seen enough of His

church in other countries to know that not everyone lives like us.

In fact, few do. We have become dangerously comfortable—

believers ooze with wealth and let their addictions to comfort and

security numb the radical urgency of the gospel. What’s

encouraging is that there seems to be a growing number of

American believers who recognize this and are making changes. Be

encouraged by the statement Jesus made while addressing the

church in Sardis. He addresses the “few” who refused to succumb:

“You have still a few names in Sardis, people who have not soiled

their garments, and they will walk with me in white, for they are

worthy” (Rev. 3:4).

I would love for Jesus to grace me with those words: You are

worthy. Wouldn’t you?

Lord, Save Us

Racism, greed, misplaced assurance, false teaching, misuse of

wealth, and degrading words to a fellow human being—these are

the things that damn people to hell? According to Scripture, the

answer is yes.

Let’s not miss the very purpose for these lively warnings. God

wants us to do more than intellectually agree with the words of

Scripture: He wants us to live in light of them. Like the ER doctor

who shocks the dead back to life, belief in hell should rescue our

complacent hearts from the suffocating grip of passivity.

God, help me overcome my selfishness. I want to love the way

You asked me to.

I don’t want to say another insulting word to or about another

person, not even jokingly.

I want to shock my enemies with Christian love.

I want to joyfully sacrifice for the poor, and to see You when I

see them.

I don’t want to fit in anymore.

Holy Spirit, save me. Set me apart. Make me worthy.

Notes

1 See Rodney Woo, The Color of Church: Biblical and Practical Paradigm for Multicultural Churches (Nashville: B & H

Publishers, 2009); M ichael Emerson and Christian Smith,

Divide by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race

in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

2 Among the many books about Jesus and poverty, see Ron

Sider’s Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger (Nashville:

Thomas Nelson, 1997).

3 In the context, Jesus is talking about impoverished Christians, not any poor person. This is clear from Jesus’ description of

the poor as “these brothers of M ine” (25:40 NASB). In the book

of M atthew, the term brother is used to describe Jesus’ literal

brothers or his followers (M att. 12:46–50). It’s never a general

description of all people. But this doesn’t get the church off

the hook. M any, if not most, of the two billion people living

on less than two dollars a day are confessing Christians.

Chapter 6

“What If God …?”

Now I want to approach the passage of Scripture that has caused

me more confusion than any other: Romans 9. The text itself is not

confusing. Please read it for yourself. It’s fairly simple to

understand. What makes it confusing is the “newness” of it. That’s

a strange thing to say about something that was written almost two

thousand years ago. But it’s a passage that isn’t preached often, so

when believers come across it, many find themselves confused. We

find ourselves asking, “Is this saying what I think it’s saying? If

this is true about God, why hasn’t anyone told me this before?” Is

it because we are embarrassed? M aybe we don’t want to admit

that we believe in a God who is so free to do whatever He wants.

In this chapter, Paul asks a necessary question: What if?

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to

make known his power, has endured with much

patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction,

in order to make known the riches of his glory for

vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand

for glory? (Rom. 9:22–23)

What if? What if God decided to do this? What if God, as the

sovereign Creator of the universe, decided to create “vessels of

wrath prepared for destruction”? And what if He did so in order to

“show his wrath” and “make known His power”? And what if it’s

His way of showing those He saves just how great His glory and

mercy is? What would you do if He chose to do this? Refuse to

believe in Him? Refuse to be a “vessel of mercy”? Does that make

any sense? Would you refuse to follow Him? Really? Is that wise?

“What if?” is a probing question that forces us to face our

inflated view of our own logic. It’s another way of asking: Just

how high is my view of God?

The Potter and the Clay

For much of this book, we’ve been discussing some unpopular

topics: judgment, wrath, and, of course, hell. If you’re like me,

there’s a part of you that doesn’t want to believe these things. But

as we discussed in chapter one, the more important question is not

whether or not you want to, but could you believe these things, if

in fact God says they are true? This seems to be the very thing

that Paul is getting at in Romans 9:22–23.

Notice that Paul does not explicitly say that God destroys

sinners for the purpose of showing the world just how powerful

He is. Rather, Paul simply raises it as a legitimate possibility. 1 In other words, God may want to display His wrath and power by

punishing sinners, or He may have some other purpose in mind.

Either way, we must come to a place where we can let God be

God. We need to surrender our perceived right to determine what is

just and humbly recognize that God alone gets to decide how He is

going to deal with people.

Because He’s the Potter and we’re the clay. This, in fact, is the

analogy that Paul gives earlier in Romans 9. Paul begins by saying

that God will have mercy on whomever He wills and He will

harden whomever He chooses (Rom. 9:16–18). These are some

very tough statements to swallow, and Paul knows it. That’s why

he goes on to raise the question that every reader of Romans 9

raises: “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?”

(Rom. 9:19). Good question! If God gives mercy to whomever He

wants, then why does He still find fault? Or put the question

another way: If we all need mercy, and God grants it to some and

not others, then who is really responsible—us or God?

But look at Paul’s answer to this question:

But who are you, O man, to answer back to God?

Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have

you made me like this?” Has the potter no right

over the clay, to make out of the same lump one

vessel for honorable use and another for

dishonorable use? (Rom. 9:20–21)

Did Paul really just say that?

Does the Potter have the right to do whatever He wants with

the clay? In the midst of the tragedies that life often brings, in the

midst of the mysterious and hidden ways in which God often

works, in the midst of the theological tensions and paradoxes that

are woven throughout Scripture, in the midst of the pain and

sorrow and misery and confusion that accompany our existence on

earth—we must come to a place where we can answer yes to this

question. Yes, the Potter has this right.

I often hear people say, “I could never love a God who would

…”

Who would what? Who would disagree with you? And do

things that you would never do? Who would allow bad things to

happen to people? Who would be more concerned with His own

glory than your feelings? Who would—send people to hell?

But this makes about as much sense as the clay looking up at

the Potter and saying, “I really think you messed up here, let me

show you a better way to mold me.” Picture the absurdity! Yet we

do it all the time.

In fact, I do it all the time.

It has taken me forty-three years to finally confess that I have

been embarrassed by some of God’s actions. In my arrogance, I

believed I could make Him more attractive or palatable if I covered

up some of His actions. So I neglected speaking on certain

passages, or I would rush through certain statements God made in

order to get to the ones I was comfortable with. The ones I knew

others would like.

I am just now seeing the ugliness of my actions. Like the

nervous kid who tries to keep his friends from seeing his drunken

father, I have tried to hide God at times. Who do I think I am? The

truth is, God is perfect and right in all that He does. I am a fool for

thinking otherwise. He does not need nor want me to “cover” for

Him. There’s nothing to be covered. Everything about Him and all

He does is perfect.

Yet sometimes from our human perspective, it’s tough to see

exactly how God is perfect and just and good. That’s why God

says in Isaiah 55:

M y thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are

your ways my ways, declares the LORD. For as the

heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways

higher than your ways and my thoughts than your

thoughts. (vv. 8–9)

“M y thoughts are not your thoughts.” It means we think

differently! He hasn’t asked us to figure out why He does the

things He does. We can’t. We are not capable. Our thinking is

inferior to His. Let’s not think that spending a bit of time

meditating on the mysteries of the universe places us on a level

that allows us to call God into question. Our God is not a person

who is slightly more intelligent: His thoughts are infinitely higher

than ours. Knowing that the gap is so large, shouldn’t we put our

energy toward submitting rather than overanalyzing? It is natural—

no, it is expected— that there will be times, many times, when you

won’t figure Him out.

I Wouldn’t Have Done That

And sending people to hell isn’t the only thing God does that is

impossible to figure out. The Bible is bursting with divine acts that

don’t make a lot of sense to us.

Think about it.

Early on in the Bible, we read that people have become so evil

that God regrets making them. So what does He do? He decides to

save some animals and eight of His people—and then He kills the

rest. But He doesn’t just kill them. He drowns them all with a

massive flood (Gen. 6—8).

A flood? He drowns everyone? If I were God, I wouldn’t have

done that.

Later on, M oses is up on a mountain while the Israelites are

down below worshipping a golden calf. When M oses comes down,

God commands the Levites to whet their swords and run through

the camp and slaughter their brothers and friends and neighbors

(Ex. 32:27). Three thousand people died that day, and the Levites

were blessed for their obedience! They didn’t stop to figure out

whether or not the Potter’s ways were just.

Years later, God commands the Israelites to slaughter all the

inhabitants of Canaan (Deut. 20:16–18). M en, women, and

children— every … single … one. Even though God is merciful, He

tells them to take no prisoners. Slaughter them all.

If I were God, I wouldn’t have done that.

While the Israelites are conquering the land of Canaan, a man

named Achan steals some treasures from the town of Jericho. He

lies about it, but when confronted he confesses his sin and returns

the items. Nevertheless, Achan and his family—including all of his

possessions, tent and all—are all stoned to death as a result (Josh.

7).

If I were God, I wouldn’t have allowed that, let alone

commanded it.

M any years later, God commands the prophet Ezekiel to do

some pretty wild things. Ezekiel is told to lie on his right side for

390 days, to lie on his left side for 40 days, to cook food over

human dung, to hold himself back from mourning over his wife’s

death when God takes her, and to preach sermons laced with

sexually explicit rhetoric that would be rated NC-17 were it put to

film today. 2

I definitely wouldn’t have done all of that if I were God.

The fact is, Scripture is filled with divine actions that don’t fit

our human standards of logic or morality. But they don’t need to,

because we are the clay and He is the Potter. We need to stop

trying to domesticate God or confine Him to tidy categories and

compartments that reflect our human sentiments rather than His

inexplicable ways.

We serve a God whose ways are incomprehensible, whose

thoughts are not like our thoughts. Ultimately, thoughts of God

should lead to joy, because those same thoughts designed the cross

—the place where righteousness and wrath kiss.

Would you have thought to rescue sinful people from their sins

by sending your Son to take on human flesh? Would you have

thought to enter creation through the womb of a young Jewish

woman and be born in a feeding trough? Would you have thought

to allow your created beings to torture your Son, lacerate His flesh

with whips, and then drive nails through His hands and feet?

Parents, imagine it.

I’m almost sure I would not have done that if I were God.

Aren’t you glad I’m not God?

It’s incredibly arrogant to pick and choose which

incomprehensible truths we embrace. No one wants to ditch God’s

plan of redemption, even though it doesn’t make sense to us.

Neither should we erase God’s revealed plan of punishment

because it doesn’t sit well with us. As soon as we do this, we are

putting God’s actions in submission to our own reasoning, which

is a ridiculous thing for clay to do.

Wrestling with God

Yet God doesn’t call us to be stoic about our painful experiences.

He expects us to wrestle, and He knows that we will experience

pain in this life. Life does deal us some heavy blows, and it’s

natural— human—for us to weep, struggle, and cry out in

desperation. God calls us to “weep with those who weep” (Rom.

12:15). Even Jesus did this (John 11:35).

Take Job for example. Job was literally the most righteous

person in the entire world (the Bible actually says that), and yet he

suffered intensely. In a single moment, God took all of his

property, his possessions, and even his whole family. And as if

this wasn’t enough, God allowed Job to suffer from a physical

disease—possibly elephantiasis—that produced unbearable pain.

His skin became crusty and oozed with puss, his bones burned like

fire, and his entire body became deformed. 3 Naturally, Job

demanded some answers. He deserved to know what God was

doing. He had every cause to sit God down and have Him explain a

few things.

Or did he? Again, think Potter and clay.

Job did get his chance to enter the courtroom and plead his

case, but when he did, Job quickly discovered that he didn’t get to

put God on the stand and bombard Him with questions. Instead,

Job found himself in the hot seat, and God rebuked him for

thinking that he knew better than his M aker: “Where were you

when I laid the foundation of the earth?” (Job 38:4); “Have you

comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all

this” (38:18); “I will question you, and you make it known to me.

Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that

you may be in the right?” (40:7–8); “Shall the faultfinder contend

with the Almighty?” (40:2).

In other words, will the clay say to the Potter, “Why did you

do this to me?”

What if God, whose wisdom and justice are beyond our

understanding, decided to rain down severe suffering upon Job

without feeling the need to tell him why? Do you want to love a

God who would do this? Could you love a God like this?

Job did. In fact, after stepping down from the interrogation

stand, Job clung to God even more, despite the fact that he never

received answers to his questions. Job’s response is remarkable: “I

have heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees

you” (Job 42:5). In other words, Job used to know God from a

distance (“by the hearing of the ear”), but now, after having been

through the grind and clinging to God when nothing else made

sense, Job knew God in a much more intimate way (“now my eye

sees you”). And with that, Job arrived at the most important

point: It’s not about figuring out all of the mysteries of God, but

embracing Him and cherishing Him—even when He doesn’t make

perfect sense to us.

Jeremiah had a similar experience and came to the same

conclusion. After the Babylonians ripped through Israel,

slaughtering and torturing men, women, and children, Jeremiah

threw up his arms and cried out, “You have killed them in the day

of your anger, slaughtering without pity” (Lam. 2:21). That’s not a

typo. You read it correctly. This is exactly what Jeremiah said. He

believed that the actions of the Babylonians were ultimately acts of

God. As Jeremiah looked around and saw a bunch of bodies lying

in the street, he said, “God did that.”

I almost didn’t want to quote that verse. Honestly, as I started

quoting Lamentations 2:21, my first thought was, “Don’t do it; it’s

too harsh; it raises too many questions about evil and justice and

God’s ways; it may turn people off.” But then I remembered my

confession. God wasn’t embarrassed to have Jeremiah write that;

it’s time I stop being embarrassed by God’s actions. His thoughts

and ways are infinitely higher than mine. It’s time to stop

apologizing for Him and start apologizing to Him.

Please forgive me, Lord, for wanting to erase all the

things in Scripture that don’t sit well with me.

Forgive me for trying to hide some of Your actions

to make You more palatable to the world. Forgive

me for trying to make You fit my standards of justice

and goodness and love. You are God; You are

good; I don’t always understand You, but I love

You. Thank You for who You are.

Jeremiah goes on in his lament to speak of the appalling images

of the Babylonian invasion. Starving women eat their own children.

Leaders hang by their hands. Children lay dead on the streets

because of starvation.4 There is little in Lamentations that is pleasant. It’s a horrifying little book, and aptly titled. If anyone

had grounds to “not love a God who would …” it was Jeremiah.

He certainly had his doubts and came close to questioning God’s

justice. 5 But through it all—through tears, pain, confusion, anger, and doubt—Jeremiah clung to the faithfulness and goodness of

God, even though he didn’t feel that God was very good at the

moment:

But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his

mercies never come to an end; they are new every

morning; great is your faithfulness. (Lam. 3:21–23)

In the midst of his pain and confusion, Jeremiah clung to the

fact that God was God and Jeremiah was not. He let the Potter be

the Potter and understood that he was clay.

His Name Is Tobiah

Throughout Scripture and throughout history, godly women and

men have embraced the God of Job and Jeremiah. They held on to

a God whom they didn’t always understand; a God who is

immeasurably good, even though circumstances in life seem to

suggest otherwise.

Years ago, I came across an article entitled “Two M inutes to

Eternity” by M arshall Shelley, one of the editors of Christianity

Today at the time. 6 In the article, M arshall tells the story of the miraculous birth of his son. When the child was in the womb,

M arshall and his wife, Susan, found out that their child had an

abnormal heart and would probably not survive the birth, if he

even made it that far. And so the Shelleys wrestled with God.

“This was a design flaw,” M arshall writes, “and the Designer was

responsible.” So they prayed. They prayed for a miracle, they

prayed for survival, they prayed that the God of all compassion

would give the child the breath of life.

Then the day of birth came, and the child was still alive. The

child had survived the pregnancy! God is so good! As the child

was born, M arshall looked upon his beautiful son: “He was a

healthy pink, and we saw his chest rise and fall. The breath of life.

Thank you, God.”

And then the child died. Two minutes later, their son turned

from pink to blue, and he died. The miracle of life was followed by

the mystery of death. And as far as the Shelleys were concerned,

the Designer was responsible. When the nurse asked the Shelleys if

they had a name for the child, Susan responded: “Toby. It’s short

for a biblical name, Tobiah, which means ‘God is good.’”

God is good.

God is good? How could they say that? How could they

believe such an unbelievable attribute of God, when everything in

that moment seemed to be proving the opposite? Because the

Shelleys believed that God is good not only when He makes sense

to us, but even when He doesn’t. God is good, because God is

God. Goodness is inherent in who He is. And the Shelleys believed

this. “The name was what we believed, not what we felt,”

M arshall writes. “It was what we wanted to feel again someday.”

And so it is with many things about God that don’t seem to

add up.

And so it must be with hell.

As I have said all along, I don’t feel like believing in hell. And

yet I do. M aybe someday I will stand in complete agreement with

Him, but for now I attribute the discrepancy to an underdeveloped

sense of justice on my part. God is perfect. And I joyfully submit

to a God whose ways are much, much higher than mine.

Notes

1 James Dunn, for instance, says that Paul’s statement in Romans

9:22 amounts to the question “Do you think the creature

knows better than the Creator?” Dunn goes on to interpret

Romans 9:22–23 the same way I do, as suggesting a legitimate

possibility yet not offering a dogmatic answer ( Romans [Word

Bible Commentary 38B] [Waco, TX: Word, 1988], 566).

2 See Ezek. 4, 16, 23, and 24.

3 See Job 7:5; 13:28; 30:30, 18. The fact that Job’s friends could hardly recognize him (2:12) suggests that his body was

deformed. The Hebrew word often translated “boils” or

“sores” in 2:7 may refer to the disease we now call

elephantiasis.

4 See Lam. 2:11, 20–21; 4:10; 5:11–12.

5 See for instance 5:21–22, where he seems to question whether or

not God will hold true to His promises (cf. Lam. 2:10–21).

6 M arshall Shelley, “Two M inutes to Eternity,” Christianity Today 38 (1994): 25–27. I first heard about this story in a

sermon by John Piper about ten years ago.

Chapter 7

Don’t Be Overwhelmed

The thought of hell is paralyzing for most people, which is why

we often ignore its existence—at least in practice. After all, how

can we possibly carry on with life if we are constantly mindful of a

fiery place of torment?

Yet that’s the whole point—we shouldn’t just go on with life

as usual. A sense of urgency over the reality of hell should recharge

our passion for the gospel as it did for Paul, who, “knowing the

fear of the Lord,” persuaded people to believe (2 Cor. 5:11). We

should not just try to cope with hell, but be compelled—as with all

doctrine—to live differently in light of it.

In fact, Peter makes exactly this point in 2 Peter 3. He

describes the Lord’s return, the day of judgment, and the

destruction of the ungodly. And what does he conclude? That we

should throw our hands up in despair because there’s nothing we

can do about it anyway? No. He asks a pointed question: “Since all

these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought

you to be in lives of holiness and godliness?” (2 Peter 3:11).

In light of this truth and for the sake of people’s eternal

destiny, our lives and our churches should be—no, they must be!

—free from the bondage of sin, full of selfless love that overflows

for neighbors, the downcast, and the outsiders among us.

In other words, we need to stop explaining away hell and start

proclaiming His solution to it.

A Greater Urgency

Paul’s drastic statement in Romans 9 reveals the heart behind his

incredible missionary career:

I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my

heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed

and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers,

my kinsmen according to the flesh. (vv. 2–3)

Did you catch that? Paul wished he were accursed—or sent to

hell—so that his fellow Jews could live. That’s insane! I don’t

know what to do with that. I don’t want anyone to go to hell, but I

would never be willing to go to hell on someone else’s behalf! I

hate the thought that people around me could end up in hell, but I

can’t say that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my

heart.

Paul had some frightening things to say about the eternal

destiny of those who reject Jesus in this life, but he loved those

people like crazy. His life was devoted to seeing them reconciled to

God. He even begged people to pursue the healing and salvation

that only Jesus offers (see 2 Cor. 5:20).

More Reason to Rejoice

It’s a bit odd that the same Paul who had “great sorrow and

unceasing anguish” in his heart commanded us also to “rejoice in

the Lord always” (Phil. 4:4). Somehow Paul was able to grieve and

rejoice at the same time. This is the tension we live with as

followers of Jesus. We are thrilled to know Jesus and be saved

from God’s wrath, yet we are burdened for our loved ones who

don’t know Him.

One of the unexpected blessings that came from this study has

been a deeper sense of gratitude for the cross. This past Sunday, I

attended a worship service at a small church that had no musicians.

So we sang some songs with a background track, and others a

cappella. In small crowds, I try to sing softly because my voice is

not very pleasant. Yet as we sang songs about the cross, I found

myself crying out at the top of my lungs.

“TILL ON THAT CROSS AS JESUS DIED, THE WRATH

OF GOD WAS SATISFIED!”

I’ve sung songs like that a thousand times, and I’m sure you

have too. But think about that line. Jesus satisfied the wrath of

God. This is the same wrath that Jesus, Paul, Jude, Peter, and John

spoke and wrote so vividly about. This is the same wrath that is

being poured out for your sins. This is the same wrath that

ultimately will be satisfied, either in hell or on the cross. We

deserve it; Christ endured it. How could I keep from bursting out

in joy?

While hell can be a paralyzing doctrine, it can also be an

energizing one, for it magnifies the beauty of the cross.

Hell is the backdrop that reveals the profound and unbelievable

grace of the cross. It brings to light the enormity of our sin and

therefore portrays the undeserved favor of God in full color. Christ

freely chose to bear the wrath that I deserve so that I can

experience life in the presence of God. How can I keep from

singing, crying, and proclaiming His indescribable love?

Finally … Are You Sure?

It would make no sense for me to write all I have written without

at least asking the question. Are you sure that you have embraced

the God who can save you from hell? I don’t want to make this all

about avoiding hell. As I mentioned earlier, the gospel is far deeper

and more wonderful than just that. However, in light of our

discussion, it is fitting that I beg you to be absolutely sure that you

are not headed there. This is for everyone. Pastors, leaders,

seekers, skeptics—no one knows what you are thinking right now.

Let down your guard, and take time to deal honestly with the

issue.

Do you know Him? Are you secure in Him? In love with Him?

I don’t know what your life is like or what hardships you’ve

faced. I don’t know what your thoughts on hell are, or whether or

not you’ve been attacked or manipulated with threats of hell in the

past. All I know is that from my best understanding of Scripture,

hell is a real place for those who choose to reject God. Yet God is

not licking His chops looking for any poor soul that He can send to

hell. In fact, the opposite is true: “Have I any pleasure in the death

of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should

turn from his way and live?” (Ezek. 18:23; cf. 33:11).

And so we all have a choice before us. Choose life or choose

death. God asks you to turn from your ways and live.

Paul addressed a crowd in Lystra with these words:

“We bring you good news, that you should turn

from these vain things to a living God, who made

the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in

them. In past generations he allowed all the nations

to walk in their own ways. Yet he did not leave

himself without witness.” (Acts 14:15–17)

Again, I don’t know who you are or what God has done in

your life, but I know He has not “left himself without witness” in

your life. Paul says that every single one of us knows the truth

about God (see Rom. 1:18–25). In light of this truth, God calls you

to respond in love. Turn to God. Embrace Him. Trust Him. Put

your faith in Him. Accept the incredible gift of the cross, where

Jesus took upon Himself the punishment we deserve and gives to

us the life, healing, and redemption that come only through grace.

I can’t think of a better way to end this book than to point you

to the words of Paul, who urges us to be reconciled to the God

who loves you more than you can possibly imagine:

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled

to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who

knew no sin, so that in him we might become the

righteousness of God … behold, now is the day of

salvation. (2 Cor. 5:20–21; 6:2)

God extends mercy to all now, He wants us to know Him now,

He urges all of us now to be reconciled to Him through His Son

Jesus Christ. The door is open now—but it won’t stay open

forever.

Appendix

Frequently Asked Questions

This book raised many questions about hell; some have been

discussed in detail, while others were brushed over to focus on the

purposes of this book and in order to keep the book a reasonable

length. This appendix is an attempt to answer some of the most

frequently asked questions related to the topic of hell.

Question 1: Are the images of fire, darkness,

and worms to be understood literally?

The most well-known imagery used to describe hell is fire. Jesus,

for instance, describes hell as the “fiery furnace” (M att. 13:42), the

“eternal fire” (M att. 18:8–9), and the place where the “fire is not

quenched” (M ark 9:48). Likewise, John, in the book of Revelation,

depicts hell as a “lake of fire” where the “burning sulfur” torments

forever (Rev. 14:10–11; 20:10, 15). Are we to understand these

images of fire literally? Will unbelievers literally burn forever, yet

never fully be consumed?

M ost evangelical Christians who believe that hell is a literal

place and that its duration is forever do not interpret the fire

imagery literally. Well-known figures such as John Calvin, M artin

Luther, C. S. Lewis, Billy Graham, D. A. Carson, J. I. Packer, and

Sinclair Ferguson all understand the fire images nonliterally. Other

conservative commentators and theologians, such as Charles

Hodge, Carl Henry, F. F. Bruce, Roger Nicole, Leon M orris, and

Robert Peterson agree. These scholars note that fire imagery is

used in many other places in the Bible—not just in passages

relating to hell—in obviously nonliteral ways. Jesus says that He

“came to cast fire on the earth” (Luke 12:49), which in the context

symbolizes judgment. Our Lord didn’t literally gather sticks and

leaves to set the planet ablaze. John describes Jesus’ eyes as like

“a flame of fire” (Rev. 1:14); for James, the tongue is a “fire”

(James 3:6); and according to Paul, our mundane works will be

burned with fire on judgment day (1 Cor. 3:15). Fire is used

metaphorically throughout Scripture, and I agree with the host of

evangelical scholars above that fire is probably not to be taken

literally when it’s used to describe hell.

This is supported by several passages in which a literal fire

would conflict with what the author says elsewhere. Jude, for

instance, describes hell as an “eternal fire” (Jude 7), while six

verses later he calls hell the “blackest darkness” (Jude 13). Jesus

and John the Baptist both describe hell with images of “fire”

(M att. 3:10, 12; 25:41) and “darkness” (M att. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30).

These metaphors of fire and darkness are clearly mixed—where

there’s fire, there cannot be complete darkness. The mixing of

metaphors suggests that these images are just that: metaphors.

This is further supported by Jesus’ statement that hell was created

for the Devil and his angels (M att. 25:41), who are spirit beings. If

fire imagery is taken literally, one wonders how fire would work on

such nonphysical creatures.

Of course God could make all this work. He could prevent fire

from penetrating darkness and enable spirits to feel the pain of the

flame. But given the widespread use of fire as a metaphor in

Scripture, I find it best to take these images nonliterally.

The same probably goes for other images, such as thick

darkness (M att. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30; Luke 13:28), undying worms

(M ark 9:43–48), and the gnashing of teeth (M att. 8:12; 13:42, 50;

22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Luke 13:28). On one occasion, Jesus even

says that the unbeliever will be cut into pieces (M att. 24:51). With

such images, I find it best to view them all as powerful ways of

conveying the inexplicable notions of punishment that will occur in

hell. Fire and the gnashing of teeth depict intense pain and

suffering; darkness conveys separation from God; worms that

don’t die (see Isa. 66:24) probably emphasize the shame of eternal

death, if not its never-ending duration.

So while the passages examined in this book are clear about hell

as a real place where the wicked will be tormented, the Bible does

not seem to tell us exactly what that torment will entail.

Question 2: Are there degrees of punishment in

hell?

Will the Buddhist monk sit next to Hitler in hell? Or will some

people suffer a greater degree of punishment than others?

The Bible suggests that there will be degrees of punishment in

hell. Jesus said in M atthew 11:24, “It will be more tolerable on the

day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you”—the “you”

being those who witnessed the works of Christ. In Luke 12, Jesus

tells a parable about some disobedient slaves who receive

punishment for their misdeeds. One slave is cut into pieces,

another collects many lashes, while the last one gets a “light

beating” (vv. 46–48). If this parable applies to punishment in hell,

then it affirms that there will be degrees of suffering. Paul also

suggests this when he says that unbelievers are “storing up wrath”

for themselves on judgment day (Rom. 2:5).

Though Scripture is not crystal clear on the issue, there is

support for the view that there will be degrees of punishment in

hell.

Question 3: Is hell at the center of the earth?

Some first-century Jews and many medieval Christians would have

said yes. Some books, such as Dante’s Inferno, suggest this, and

such widely read books have a way of creating ideas that seep deep

down into the fabric of many cultures. But there is nothing in the

Bible that clearly locates hell at the center of the earth.

The Old Testament does say that when people die they go

“down to Sheol” (Gen. 37:35). But sheol is not necessarily hell

(see question 4), and the reference to “going down” is more of a

figure of speech than a geographical designation. Also, as we saw in

chapters two and three of this book, “hell” itself is reserved for the

wicked after judgment day. In other words, no one is in hell right

now. They may be in hades (see Luke 16), but hades, like sheol , is

where the wicked await their judgment. Hades is not hell.

It’s probably best to follow the advice of the early church

leader Chrysostom, who said that we shouldn’t be concerned about

where hell is, only how to escape it. Other than that, we know

nothing of its location or geography.

Question 4: Does the Old Testament word sheol

refer to hell?

The simple answer is no, sheol isn’t hell. The meaning of sheol,

often translated as “pit” or “grave,” is difficult to translate. The

word occurs sixty-five times in the Old Testament, and it describes

the place where both the righteous (Gen. 37:35; 42:38; Isa. 38:10,

17–18) and the wicked (Num. 16:30; Isa. 14:19, 11) go after death.

Still, this doesn’t mean that they go to the same place. It only

means that the word sheol is flexible and doesn’t have to designate

the specific destiny of the righteous or wicked. At the very least,

sheol is simply a synonym for death; at most, it may refer to some

sort of shadowy subhuman existence after death, without

specifying the details.

The Old Testament doesn’t give us many details about hell.

Daniel 12:2 says that the wicked will be resurrected and punished,

but no other details are given. Ezekiel 32:17–32 is by far the

longest description of the existence of the wicked after they die,

but it’s a rather ambiguous passage, preventing us from coming to

any firm conclusions about the nature of hell. In the passage,

Ezekiel seems to make a distinction between sheol (vv. 21, 27) and

what he calls “the nether world” (v. 18, cf. v. 24 NASB), where the

wicked go when they die. Here, the wicked are arranged according

to nationality (vv. 22, 24, 26, 29), where they receive their

punishment for what they did while alive. M oreover, it seems that

though they are not fully alive, they are fully conscious of what’s

going on. The wicked receive punishment (v. 27), feel shame (v.

30), and are even “comforted” at the arrival of more inhabitants in

this “netherworld” (v. 31). “M isery loves company” seems to be

the point here.

Despite what seems to be a detailed description of hell, the

genre of the passage prevents us from taking all of these

descriptions in a literal manner. At best, we can say that God

revealed to Ezekiel that the wicked would receive some sort of

punishment after they die. Beyond this, caution must rule our

interpretation.

Question 5: What about the person who has

never heard the gospel?

This is a tough one. It comes up in almost every Bible study I’ve

ever taught. What about the man in the jungle who has never heard

the gospel and therefore never has the opportunity to accept

Jesus? What if he simply responds to the light he’s been given? He

lived as best he could, and if he had heard the gospel, he probably

would have believed it. Will God save such a person?

Everything in me wants to say yes. Because saying yes makes

sense. Yes seems fair. But here’s the problem: There’s nothing in

Scripture that says anyone will be saved apart from faith in Jesus.

Scripture also teaches that the so-called “light” we’ve all been

given through creation, what theologians call general revelation, is

sufficient to condemn but not sufficient to save. In other words,

when people look at creation and see that there must be a God, and

yet have no way of knowing His name or the plan of salvation, the

Bible says that these people do not respond positively to such

“light.” Paul addresses this directly in Romans 1:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven

against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men,

who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.

For what can be known about God is plain to them,

because God has shown it to them. For his invisible

attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine

nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the

creation of the world, in the things that have been

made. So they are without excuse. For although they

knew God, they did not honor him as God or give

thanks to him, but they became futile in their

thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

(Rom. 1:18–22)

This passage says that all people have been given light—

general knowledge that there is a God—and yet all people reject

this knowledge and are therefore without excuse. Even though I

have theoretical stories in my mind of a person living in the jungle

who responds positively to the light he’s been given, Paul argues

otherwise. This passage teaches that all people are condemned not

for rejecting the gospel but for rejecting the “general revelation”

that’s given to all people.

Scripture teaches that a person must come to a saving

knowledge of Jesus Christ to be saved. However, God can reveal

knowledge through many different forms: dreams, visions, or

divinely given thoughts that penetrate the mind of the person living

in the jungle, or whomever. I’ve heard countless stories, maybe

you have too, of people living in places thick with Islam, or other

religions, where there is little or no exposure to the gospel, and yet

people come to Christ. They have a vision or dream in which Jesus

appears to them, and they respond. God can save whomever He

wants, however He wants, but He always does so through the one

avenue He Himself paved: His Son Jesus Christ.

I must mention, however, that in Scripture, people are

normally saved through a human messenger. In fact, Romans

10:13–15 indicates that preaching the gospel is the prescribed

means through which God saves people. While God has used

dreams and visions to reach people (cf. Gal 1:12–16), we should

not depend on such means to reach the unreached. There are still

1.5 billion people who have never heard the gospel. God makes it

clear that it is our responsibility to go to them.

Everything I’ve said thus far seems clear to me from Scripture.

There are heaps of important follow-up questions that could be

asked, but at the end of the day, we have to simply believe what

Scripture says and not go beyond it. With all these tough

questions, it’s best to let God be God and believe that the Judge of

all the earth will do right (Gen. 18:25).

Question 6: Did Jesus preach to people in hell

between His death and resurrection?

According to 1 Peter 3, Jesus, “proclaimed to the spirits in prison,

because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited

in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared” (vv. 19–

20). This is a rather strange passage, but it almost certainly doesn’t

mean that Jesus was preaching the gospel to unbelievers who had

died. The word spirits, when used without any qualifications (such

as “spirit of man,” etc.) refers to supernatural beings, whether good

or bad (M att. 12:45; Luke 10:20; Heb. 1:14). Peter also says that

these spirits were disobedient “in the days of Noah.” This

probably refers to another strange passage in Genesis 6:1–4, where

evil angels apparently had sexual relations with women and were

“imprisoned” by God for it (see 2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6). This raises

many other questions, I’m sure. In any case, it seems that here in 1

Peter 3, Jesus went to that angelic prison and proclaimed victory in

light of the cross over these disobedient demons (see Col. 2:15).

So Jesus did not preach the gospel to unbelievers in hell, at

least not in an evangelistic sense.

Question 7: How can God be loving and still

send people to hell?

This is a question that many intelligent theologians have wrestled

with over the centuries. It was, in fact, this question (among

others) that drove the early church leader Origen to believe that all

people will end up in heaven. He believed that the love of God

demands it.

Can God be loving and still send people to hell? If what I have

argued in this book is correct, then we must answer yes. Here are

three reasons why:

First, God is love, but He also defines what love is. We don’t

have the license to define love according to our own standards and

sensibilities. We often assume that love means achieving the

ultimate happiness of everyone you are able to. If this were love,

then yes, hell would be incompatible with God’s love. But

Scripture doesn’t define God’s love in this way. Love is part of

who God is. And God defines what love is. God does not have to

save everyone for Him to show love. Love, in other words, is

essentially wrapped up in the character of God. Though God acts

in ways that seem unloving by our standards, they are not unloving

by His standards—and His standards are the ones that matter.

Second, we must understand the love of God in light of His

other characteristics. God is love, but He is also holy and just, and

He frequently pours out wrath toward sin. In fact, God sometimes

withholds certain attributes in order to exercise others. For

instance, God withholds His wrath to exercise mercy. God

withholds justice to pour out His grace. Of course, God could

choose to lavish all humanity with His mercy and therefore choose

to withhold His wrath toward everyone. But the Bible doesn’t

support this.

Third, and to my mind most importantly, we must understand

God’s love in light of God’s freedom. As we have seen in this

book, God, as the Creator, is free to do whatever He sees best. He

is compelled by none other than Himself. And God’s freedom

means—though it’s difficult to swallow—that God can withhold

love (Rom. 9). It’s a logical (and theological) mistake to think that

God can’t be loving unless He saves everyone. Such an

assumption, while seeking to cherish the love of God, violates His

freedom and sovereignty.

I’m not at all trying to minimize the pain we feel when we

think about the unsaved being tormented in hell, nor am I

suggesting that we simply snuff our emotions and move on with

our lives: Remember Paul’s anguish (Rom. 9:2–3). All I’m

suggesting is that as the all-powerful, all-wise Creator of the

universe, God does what is just, right, and loving in a much more

profound way than we can possibly imagine. We must cling to

Abraham’s words in Genesis 18:25: “Shall not the Judge of all the

earth do what is just?”

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Barclay, William. A Spiritual Autobiography. Grand Rapids, M I:

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———. “Early Jewish Visions of Hell.” Journal of Theological

Studies 41 (1990): 355–85.

———. “Universalism—A Historical Survey.” Themelios 4, no. 2

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Beasley-M urray, G. R. Jesus and the Kingdom of God. Grand

Rapids, M I: Eerdmans, 1986.

Bell, Rob. Love Wins. New York: HarperOne, 2011.

— — — . Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith. Grand

Rapids, M I: Zondervan, 2005.

Carson, D. A. M atthew (The Expositor’s Bible Commentary).

Grand Rapids, M I: Zondervan, 2010.

Charlesworth, James H., ed. The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. 2

vols. New York: Doubleday: 1983–1985.

Davies, W. D. and Dale C. Allison Jr. Matthew (The International

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Dunn, James. Romans (Word Bible Commentary 38B). Waco, TX:

Word, 1988.

Eller, Vernard. The Most Revealing Book of the Bible: Making

Sense Out of Revelation. Grand Rapids, M I: Eerdmans, 1974.

Emerson, M ichael and Christian Smith. Divide by Faith:

Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America.

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Erickson, M illard. Christian Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, M I:

Baker, 1998.

France, R. T. The Gospel of Matthew (New International

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Eerdmans, 2007.

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Edward. Fire That Consumes: A Biblical Case for

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Carlisle, UK: Paternoster, 1994.

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Licensed to christian jelbring on 2012-04-06

About the Author

Francis Chan has a BA in youth ministry (The M aster’s College)

and an M Div (The M aster’s Seminary). He was in youth ministry

for six years and was a senior pastor for sixteen years. In 1994 he

started Cornerstone Church, and the church has since established

eight additional church plants. He served as senior pastor of

Cornerstone Church until 2010. Through Cornerstone, Francis also

founded Eternity Bible College in 2004, where he taught and served

as chancellor until 2010.

Francis’s heart for people is evident through his involvement

on the boards of World Impact and Children’s Hunger Fund. He

travels extensively on mission trips to places like El Salvador,

Japan, Peru, M exico, and Africa in order to see the needs firsthand

and to generate love and support for the people there.

A popular teacher and speaker, Francis addresses tens of

thousands of people annually, both in the United States and

internationally. His passionate, honest, and unabashed speaking

style imprints the truth he shares on his listeners. Typical venues

include college chapels, churches, and high school retreats; pastors’

conferences such as Catalyst, Orange, and Exponential; and youth

conferences such as Passion. Crazy Love, a New York Times best

seller that has sold over one and a half million copies, was

Francis’s first book. David C Cook also released the Crazy Love

DVD Study Resource, based on the book, in January 2009.

His second book, Forgotten God, released in 2009 and was

followed by the Forgotten God DVD and the Remembering the

Forgotten God workbook. Francis’s BASIC. seven-film series,

created with Flannel, launched with the first three films FEAR

GOD, FOLLOW JESUS, and HOLY SPIRIT. In addition, he has

written three children’s books: The Big Red Tractor and the Little

Village, Halfway Herbert, and Ronnie Wilson’s Gift.

Francis lives in California with his wife, Lisa, and their five

children.

About the Coauthor

Preston S prinkle has a BA in bible exposition from The M aster’s

College, an M Div from The M aster’s Seminary, and a PhD in New

Testament from Aberdeen University in Scotland. He has taught

biblical studies at Nottingham University in England and at

Cedarville University in Ohio, and he currently teaches at Eternity

Bible College in Simi Valley, California.

Preston has authored many essays and scholarly articles in

publications such as Bible Study M agazine, Journal for the Study

of the Old Testament, Journal for the Evangelical Theological

Society, Currents in Biblical Research, and many others. He has

also worked on three books: Law and Life, The Faith of Jesus

Christ (coedited with M ichael Bird), and the forthcoming Judaism

Revisited. In addition to teaching and writing, Preston currently

serves on the pastoral staff at Cornerstone Community Church in

Simi Valley, where he participates in preaching and the global

ministry team.

Preston and his wife, Christine, have three daughters and a son.

Along with his love for baseball and surfing, Preston enjoys the

outdoors—including hiking, camping, and having fun in the sun

with his family, as well as hanging out with college students.

Turn the page to experience …

CHAPTER 7

Supernatural Church

What the soul is in our body, the Holy Spirit is in the

body of Christ, which is the church.

-Augustine-

I bet you’d agree that a group of talented, charismatic leaders can

draw a crowd. Find the right creative team, musicians, and

speakers, and you can grow any church. It doesn’t even have to be

a Christian church. The fact is that without making a conscious

choice to depend on the Holy Spirit, we can do a lot. (Although

without the Spirit, we wouldn’t actually be drawing our next

breath—but I am talking about cognizant and intentional

dependence on our part.) M y point is that a growing and energetic

gathering is not necessarily evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work.

We all have our natural talents and bents, things that we are

“gifted at” (of course, the reality is that those gifts too are

ultimately from God). I have friends who are gifted artists, and I

love watching them paint and draw. Those of us who are

artistically challenged are stunned by the beautiful works of art

they create. Others are good with people and can easily work in a

variety of jobs that require people skills. Still others know how to

sell things, no matter what the product is. And some have the skill

set required to pull off a decent church.

A while back I asked my church during a service if they

thought I could successfully sell insurance as a career. I did this

because I know that some of my natural skills are connected to

interacting with people and speaking. The fact is that we all have

jobs that come naturally for us. Because of how I was made, I

could be an insurance salesman if I had a little bit of training. And I

can probably “pull off” a fairly adequate church on my own as

well. But who wants or needs that?

I don’t want my life to be explainable without the Holy Spirit.

I want people to look at my life and know that I couldn’t be doing

this by my own power. I want to live in such a way that I am

desperate for Him to come through. That if He doesn’t come

through, I am screwed. (I probably shouldn’t write that word here,

but it’s how I truly feel about this.)

There was a time when I got excited over a crowd showing up

to hear me preach, but those days are long gone. Now I deeply

desire that the Spirit of God would do things that I know are not of

me and that cannot be faked or accounted for by human reason.

I don’t believe God wants me (or any of His children) to live in

a way that makes sense from the world’s perspective, a way I

know I can “manage.” I believe He is calling me—and all of us—to

depend on Him for living in a way that cannot be mimicked or

forged. He wants us to walk in step with His Spirit rather than

depend solely on the raw talent and knowledge He’s given us.

But instead of living this way, we’ve created a whole brand of

churches that do not depend on the Spirit, a whole culture of

Christians who are not disciples, a new group of “followers” who

do not follow. If all God asked for were faceless numbers to fill the

churches, then we would all be doing all right. M ost of us would

feel pretty confident. But simply having a good speaker, a service

that is short and engaging, a good venue, and whatever else we add

to the mix does not make a “good” or “successful” church. God

intended for His bride, those who claim His name, to be much more

than this.

God is not interested in numbers. He cares most about the

faithfulness, not the size, of His bride. He cares about whether

people are lovers of Him. And while I might be able to get people

in the doors of a church or auditorium if I tell enough jokes or use

enough visuals, the fact remains that I cannot convince people to

be obsessed with Jesus. Perhaps I can talk people into praying a

prayer, but I cannot talk anyone into falling in love with Christ. I

cannot make someone understand and accept the gift of grace. Only

the Holy Spirit can do that. So by every measure that actually

counts, I need the Holy Spirit. Desperately.

_____

Sometimes I leave Christian events wondering if we resemble the

prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18 more than Elijah, the prophet of

God. If you’ve forgotten the story, it may be good to stop here

and read that chapter, or else the rest of what I write in this section

will make very little sense to you. The prophets of Baal had a

loud, passionate worship gathering that lasted from morning till

evening. When they were done, they had a great time of fellowship

(I think you can call it that). But “no one answered; no one paid

attention” (18:29). After all of that, Elijah prayed. God heard his

prayer, and fire came down from heaven.

M y favorite part of that story comes when it is all over and the

prophets of Baal are saying, “The LORD—he is God! The LORD—

he is God!” (18:39 NIV). They didn’t say, “Elijah is a great

speaker” or “Elijah sure knows how to connect with God!” They

were stunned by God. They were in awe of His power. They

knew that what they experienced could not have been manipulated

by Elijah. They experienced the power of God.

Is that what happens at the Christian gatherings you attend?

Or does it feel more like what the prophets of Baal experienced

before Elijah prayed? We can have a great time singing and dancing

ourselves into a frenzy. But at the end of it, fire doesn’t come

down from heaven. People leave talking about the people who led

rather than the power of God.

_____

This principle carries into the way we live our personal lives as

well. People ought to see the transformation in our lives and

respond by saying, “The Lord—He is God!”

Has anyone ever been amazed by your peace? Love? Joy?

Have they ever envied your self-control? Have you ever prayed

that God would so fill you with the Spirit that people would know

the change could be empowered only by the Spirit? It is when we

are filled with true peace and hope that people notice there is

something different about us. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives

us both peace (Rom. 14:17) and hope (15:13).

I think we all could agree that living “according to our sinful

flesh” is not what is intended for us as children of God. Yet even

so, we often choose to face life’s issues and circumstances in

exactly the same way as someone without the Spirit of God. We

worry, strive, and grieve no differently than unbelievers. While it is

true that we are humans like everyone else, it is also true that we

are humans with the Spirit of God dwelling in us. Yet, whether

consciously or not, we essentially say to God, “I know You raised

Christ from the dead; but the fact is my problems are just too

much for You and I need to deal with them by myself.”

Even in our daily living we can look more like the prophets of

Baal as we live our lives, running about in a frenzy, trying to fix

our problems, not stopping long enough to call on the power of

God Almighty. Yet as children of God, we are not called to trust in

our idols or ourselves. We are made to be like Elijah, who did not

question whether God would show His face that day. He prayed

and asked for help, and God sent down fire from heaven in

response.

Perhaps you don’t need fire from heaven, but peace. Perhaps

what you need is wisdom to know which decision to make. Or

courage to do the right thing, even though you might lose your job.

Or maybe you need love because you feel alone. Or you want

people with a similar vision to journey with and support you along

the way. Whatever you need, the point is that God is aware of you

and your circumstances, and He knows what you really need. He is

able to bring these things, people, and circumstances into your life.

But God is not a coercive God. And though He desires for His

children to know peace and love and to have wisdom, I have

noticed that often He waits for us to ask.

He desires to do more than “help out” a bit. He wants to

completely transform us. He wants to take a timid heart and set it

ablaze with strength and courage, so much so that people know

something supernatural has taken place—life change just as

miraculous as fire coming down from heaven. He wants to imbue

us with His wisdom because He is the “spirit of wisdom and

revelation” (Eph. 1:17; see Isa. 11:2). Even as the Spirit works in

us to make us more like Christ, to transform us, He is also patient.

This work will not be complete until His kingdom comes in full,

though this does not deter Him from working now.

_____

You are most likely familiar with the “fruit passage” in Galatians 5,

which says, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,

patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-

control. Against such things there is no law” (vv. 22–23 NIV). You

may even have the list memorized. But look over those traits right

now and ask yourself if you possess each to a supernatural degree.

Do you exhibit more kindness and faithfulness than the M ormons

you know? Do you have more self-control than your M uslim

friends? M ore peace than Buddhists? M ore joy than atheists? If

GOD truly lives in you, shouldn’t you expect to be different from

everyone else?

What disturbs me most is when we’re not really bothered that

God living in us has not made much of a noticeable difference.

M ost churchgoers are content to find a bit of peace rather than a

“peace of God, which surpasses all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). We

want just enough peace to survive the week (or perhaps even the

day).

Certainly there have been times in my life when just getting

through the day was possible only with God’s supernatural help

and presence. You might understand the kind of desperate season I

am talking about; most of us have experienced times like this—

times when we really do have to ask for peace and sustenance

every ten minutes. But what I am talking about is when we live our

lives this way, when every day of our lives we are just barely

hanging on, looking no different from the rest of the world.

When we exhibit the peace that surpasses the world’s

understanding, that’s when the world notices. That’s when people

say, “Your Lord—He is God!”

_____

Now, this chapter is not meant to make you feel guilty. But it is

meant to be a challenge and make a space for you to take an honest

look at yourself. Do you know what it’s like to be filled with joy?

Do you experience genuine peace regardless of your life

circumstances? Do you consistently respond with kindness no

matter what you receive from others?

Can you imagine what it would be like never to get stressed-out

or to worry because you are so filled with the peace and love of

God? Don’t you want to be characterized by these attitudes?

Don’t we all want peace, and self-control, and all the rest?

Notice that the subject (“fruit”) in this verse is singular. It does

not say that there are many fruits of the Spirit, but that one fruit

incorporates all the different elements that follow (love, joy, peace,

etc.). This certainly doesn’t make it any easier.

I don’t know about you, but I cannot simply muster up more

love. I can’t manufacture patience just by gritting my teeth and

determining to be more patient. We are not strong or good enough,

and it doesn’t work that way. None of us can “do goodness” on

our own, much less all the other elements that make up the fruit of

the Spirit.

But despite our inability to change ourselves in this way, to

simply become more peaceful or joyful, we expend a great deal of

effort trying. We focus on what God wants us to do and forget the

kind of people He wants us to be.

Instead of mustering up more willpower, let’s focus our

energies and time on asking for help from the One who has the

power to change us. Let’s take the time to ask God to put the fruit

of His Spirit into our lives. And let’s spend time with the One we

want to be more like.

I know in my own life I don’t just want to do what my

mentors do; I also want to spend time with them. I have found that

through spending time with those I respect, I become more like

them than I would by simply trying to “do what they do.”

Grunting and saying through clenched teeth, “I will be patient!”

hasn’t worked yet, and that isn’t likely to change. But what does

effect change is when we begin to ask God to make these fruit

manifest in our lives, by the power of His Spirit, and when we

spend time in communion with our God.

M y favorite verse is quite possibly James 5:17, which reads,

“Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed

fervently.” Don’t keep yourself from praying desperately and

courageously for the Spirit to work in your life simply because

you are not the prophet Elijah. As this verse says, Elijah was a

human being with a nature like ours. He was just like us. The key

thing about him? He prayed fervently.

Have you ever thought to yourself, “I’m praying to the exact

same God Elijah prayed to”? Do you genuinely believe that

M oses, Esther, David, and Daniel had n o advantage over you

spiritually? In fact, some would argue that you have the advantage

of both the risen Christ and the indwelling Spirit. Let’s stop

looking at the godly men and women in Scripture as though their

prayer lives are unattainable! Pray fervently, knowing that Peter

and Paul and M ary and Ruth were men and women “with a nature

like ours” (James 5:17). I know that I tend to run from situations

where I need God, and I think that is true of almost every one of

us. It is safer to avoid situations where we need God to come

through than to stake it all on Him and risk God’s silence. If Elijah

had not had the courage to face down the prophets of Baal that

day, if he hadn’t prayed fervently and courageously, then he would

not have experienced God’s power in such a profound way. But in

moments of doubt, I can’t help but think, What if God hadn’t sent

down fire that day and Elijah ended up in the same predicament as

the prophets of Baal? What then?

This is certainly not a call to demand that God prove Himself

in each and every circumstance that we manufacture. But it is a

profound reminder that God delights in showing up when His

people are in desperate need of Him, because that means no one

else can steal His glory.

_____

Let’s delve into the Old Testament once again and look at the story

of Gideon in Judges 7. Gideon started with an army thirty-two

thousand men strong. In several stages, God purposely dwindled it

to three hundred men. I think God did this so that no one could

say, “Look what we did!” Instead, everyone knew that it was

God’s power that defeated the enemy. Only through God could a

tiny army of three hundred men rout the much larger M idianite

army.

God wants the praise for what we do in our lives. But if we

never pray audacious, courageous prayers, how can He answer

them? If we never follow Him to positions where we need Him,

how can He show up and make His presence known?

Can you, along with Elijah and Gideon, say that when people

see your life they respond by praising our Father?

When I live by my own power and strength, relying solely on

my natural talents to see me through, then people naturally praise

me for how I am living. But when I am living in a way that requires

me to depend on the Holy Spirit, people respond by praising my

Father in heaven.

_____

When was the last time you experienced the hand of God? Ask

yourself. Think about the times in your life when you have been

touched by God in a way that no one could convince you was a

coincidence. These may not be “fire from heaven” or “voice like

thunder” kinds of experiences; perhaps it was the wordless

whisper of hope when you were overwhelmed by depression. Or

perhaps you experienced God through the unconditional

acceptance of another human being. Or maybe you glimpsed some

of His character through a sunset that just made you stop and

worship. We experience God through a variety of means, and God

delights to communicate and share Himself with His beloved

daughters and sons.

The Holy Spirit is present throughout the New Testament as

well as the Old Testament. I believe in Him because I believe the

Scriptures. But even if you took away what I “know” about the

Holy Spirit from reading the Scriptures, my “right answers” about

the Holy Spirit, I would still believe.

I would still believe in the Spirit because I have experienced

God the Holy Spirit working in and through and around my life in

ways I cannot deny or ignore. I certainly do not advocate ignoring

the Scriptures or basing everything on experience, but to

completely ignore experience—including your personal experience

and the experience of the wider body of Christ, both now and

historically—is unbiblical.

If you have not known and experienced God in ways you

cannot deny, I would suggest that you are not living in a needy and

dependent way. God delights to show up when His children call on

His name and when they are trusting fully in Him to come through,

whether that is in relationships, in battling sin, in strength to make

sacrifices, or in endurance to be faithful in daily life. Are you living

this way? Or are you surviving only by your own strength, by

your own wits?

We Were Family

A while back a former gang member came to our church. He was

heavily tattooed and rough around the edges, but he was curious to

see what church was like. He had a relationship with Jesus and

seemed to get fairly involved with the church.

After a few months, I found out the guy was no longer coming

to the church. When asked why he didn’t come anymore, he gave

the following explanation: “I had the wrong idea of what church

was going to be like. When I joined the church, I thought it was

going to be like joining a gang. You see, in the gangs we weren’t just

nice to each other once a week—we were family.” That killed me

because I knew that what he expected is what the church is

intended to be. It saddened me to think that a gang could paint a

better picture of commitment, loyalty, and family than the local

church body.

The church is intended to be a beautiful place of community. A

place where wealth is shared and when one suffers, everyone

suffers. A place where when one rejoices, everyone rejoices. A

place where everyone experiences real love and acceptance in the

midst of great honesty about our brokenness. Yet most of the time

this is not even close to how we would describe our churches.

Without the Spirit of God in our midst, working in us, guiding

us, and living and loving through us, we will never be the kind of

people who make up this kind of community. There is no such

thing as a real believer who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit, or a real

church without the Spirit. It’s just not possible. But what is

possible is that we would individually and corporately quench and

hinder the Spirit’s activity in and through our lives.

As for me, I am tired of talking about what we are going to do. I

am sick of talking about helping people, of brainstorming and

conferencing about ways we can be radical and make sacrifices. I

don’t want to merely talk anymore. Life is too short. I don’t want

to speak about Jesus; I want to know Jesus. I want to be Jesus to

people. I don’t want just to write about the Holy Spirit; I want to

experience His presence in my life in a profound way.

_____

A few months ago, the elders at Cornerstone Church began to ask

the question “Why don’t we live like the believers who made up

the first church?” In Acts 2:42–47 we read the following:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching

and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to

prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many

wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All

the believers were together and had everything in

common. They sold property and possessions to

give to anyone who had need. Every day they

continued to meet together in the temple courts.

They broke bread in their homes and ate together

with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and

enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord

added to their number daily those who were being

saved. (TNIV)

What followed was a beautiful time of sharing as our elders laid

“everything” at one another’s feet. We surrendered the keys to our

cars, homes, and bank accounts. The elders looked me in the eyes

and said, “What’s mine is yours. If anything ever happens to you,

I will support and care for your kids as much as I would care for

my own. I will be your life insurance.” And because they had a

history of genuine sacrifice for the sake of the gospel, I believed

what they said.

From there, we began going to some of our friends in the

congregation and expressing our commitment to them. And now

this mentality is spreading. New life is permeating the church as

individuals back up their words with sacrifice. Cars and homes are

being sold or given away. Expensive vacations are joyfully replaced

with caring for others. People are being welcomed into others’

homes—not only for meals, but to live. This is a small example of

the kinds of things that happen when people start to walk with the

Spirit and ask the Holy Spirit to affect every part of their lives.

I just shared about what a few people in one church in one city

in one country are doing. What else might it look like when people

begin to walk with the Spirit, submitting everything to Him?

Dream a little with me. This will look different in various cultures

around the world. The Spirit will lead believers in Beijing to do

different things from believers in the United Kingdom or Argentina.

This is just a hint of what happens when we begin to actually

live like we need the Spirit. For us at Cornerstone Church, it is

only the beginning.

Forceful or Forced?

When I read the book of Acts, I see the church as an unstoppable

force. Nothing could thwart what God was doing, just as Jesus

foretold: “The gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (M att.

16:18). The church was powerful and spreading like wildfire, not

because of clever planning, but by a movement of the Spirit. Riots,

torture, poverty, or any other type of persecution couldn’t stop it.

Isn’t that the type of church movement we all long to be a part of?

So much of what we see today is anything but unstoppable. It

can easily be derailed by the resignation of a pastor or an internal

church disagreement or budget cuts. Churches we build only by our

own efforts and not in the strength of the Spirit will quickly

collapse when we don’t push and prod them along. I spent years

asking God to be part of whatever I was doing. When I read the

book of Acts, I see people privileged to play a part in what God

was doing.

Recently we held a discussion about how to solve some of the

evident problems in our church. One of our pastors spoke up and

said, “I think we’re trying too hard.” He went on to share of the

supernatural things that had taken place through his prayer life. At

that point, we decided to stop talking and thinking. The next hour

was spent intensely in prayer. We never got “back to business”

that day. While there is a time to brainstorm and think and act well

using the gifts God has given us, far too often we never get to

prayer (much less start, end, and allow it to permeate all that we

do). Let’s pray that God would build His church, an unstoppable

force, empowered and sustained by the Holy Spirit.

_____

No matter where you live and what your days look like, you have

the choice each day to depend on yourself, to live safely, and to

try to control your life. Or you can live as you were created to live

—as a temple of the Holy Spirit of God, as a person dependent on

Him, desperate for God the Spirit to show up and make a

difference. When you begin living a life characterized by walking

with the Spirit, that is when people will begin to look not to you

but to our Father in heaven and give Him the praise.

M y prayer as I’ve written this book is that it would not

merely add to your knowledge. M aybe that sounds strange, but I

mean it. Often in Christian circles we talk about truth in lieu of

applying it to our lives. We hear an incisive sermon, discuss at

lunch afterward how “great” or “powerful” it was, and then never

think about it again, much less allow the Spirit to change us

through it. The truth is that greater knowledge does not necessarily

equal greater spirituality. Knowledge can lead to greater intimacy

and a deeper relationship with God, but this is not an automatic

effect.

Our Scriptures teach that if you know what you are supposed

to do and you don’t do it, then you sin (James 4:17). In other

words, when we stock up on knowledge without applying it to our

lives, we are actually sinning. You would think that learning more

about God would be a good thing … and it can be. But when we

gain

knowledge about God without responding to Him or

assimilating His truth into our lives, then it is not a good thing.

According to the Bible, it’s sin.

M ay we not merely gain knowledge. Instead, as we learn, may

we grow and confess and change more into the people we’ve been

created to be by the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within

us. “For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking

but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Rom.

14:17).

Discover M ore Online:

www.ErasingHell.com

www.CrazyLoveBook.com

www.ForgottenGod.com

www.BasicSeries.com

basicseries.com

forgottengod.com

www.CrazyLoveBook.com

DavidCCook.com

Licensed to christian jelbring on 2012-04-06

about the authors

A pastor, international speaker, and

church planter, Fr ancis C han is the

N ew York Times best-selling author of C razy Lov e

and F orgotten G od. C han is also on the board

of World Impact and C hildren’s H unger F und.

With a P hD in N ew Testament, P r eston Spr inkle

is a professor and w riter. C han and S prinkle liv e

w ith their families in C alifornia.

Licensed to christian jelbring on 2012-04-06

Document Outline

- Cover

- Endorsements

- Title Page

- Copyright Page

- Contents

- Preface

- Introduction

- 1-Does Everyone Go to Heaven

- 2-Has Hell Changed Or Have We

- 3-What Jesus Actually Said about Hell

- 4-What Jesus’ Followers Said about Hell

- 5-What Does This Have to Do with Me

- 6-What If God

- 7-Don’t Be Overwhelmed

- Appendix-Frequently Asked Questions

- Bibliography

- About the Author

- About the Coauthor

- Excerpt from Forgotten God

- Forgotten God chapter 7

- Discover More Online

- Ads

- Ads-1

Table of Contents

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Cover

Endorsements

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Preface

Introduction

1-Does Everyone Go to Heaven

2-Has Hell Changed Or Have We

3-What Jesus Actually Said about Hell

4-What Jesus’ Followers Said about Hell

5-What Does This Have to Do with Me

6-What If God

7-Don’t Be Overwhelmed

Appendix-Frequently Asked Questions

Bibliography

About the Author