This lesson was taught during the Sunday school hour by Andrew Hoy as part of the series Tough Teachings of Jesus. The audio for the lesson can be found here.
TOUGH TEACHINGS OF JESUS: HELL
Of the tough teachings of Jesus that we have studieD over the past month or so, each one has addressed a specific sinful tendency that we all deal with on a regular basis: pride, self-righteousness, self-reliance, disobedience. These teachings of Jesus are tough because it is painful to examine ourselves, to see our sin for what it is. But as difficult as it may be to be confronted by Jesus and to face our sin, when we bring our sin to Christ in repentance, there is joy and comfort, because we have a savior who has freed us from slavery, who has given us a new life, and made us children of God.
This morning, however, I will be addressing a tough teaching of a different sort -- a teaching that is not addressed directly to those of us who are in Christ. I am not going to be talking about sin (directly) or idolatry (directly); rather I am talking about the destiny of those who die outside of Christ. This morning I will be talking about hell.
Jesus teachings on hell are difficult for a different reason than many of topics that we have covered up to this point -- Jesus teachings on hell are difficult because hell is not a pleasant thing to think about. For some of us it is unpleasant because we have loved ones who we know have died without knowing Christ; for others, it is unpleasant because of the sheer horror that such a place exists. But as we have seen so far in this series, when we take serious all the teachings of Jesus, we will be blessed, even if it is difficult.
In this lesson I will begin with an overview of Jesus teaching on hell, and then address some of the errors that people frequently make regarding hell, and then share ways in which hell is an important doctrine for us as believers.
JESUS TEACHING ON HELL
But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him! Luke 12:5
Jesus is not timid or reserved in his teaching on hell. And this is fitting. For who better to speak of torments of eternal suffering and separation from God, but the God-man himself, the one who would endure the consequences of sin himself on behalf of God's elect?
Jesus mentions hell, directly and indirectly, many times throughout his teaching ministry. In fact, Jesus speak of hell far more than anyone else in the Bible. Many of his references are passing remarks, rather than direct teaching on eternal judgment.
For example, in the sermon on the mount Jesus makes the following statements:
21 "You have heard that it was said to those of old, 'You shall not murder,[a] and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.' 22 But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause[b] shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, 'Raca!' shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, 'You fool!' shall be in danger of hell fire. Matthew 5:21-22 and
29 If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. Matthew 5:29-30
Jesus also warns the scribes and Pharisees of the danger of their spiritual with statements such as:
15 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves. Matthew 25:15 and
33 Serpents, brood of vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Matthew 23:33
But as I read through the passages where Jesus mentions hell, the passage where Jesus most directly teaches about hell is in Matthew 25, where he addresses the final judgment and the separation of the sheep from the goats.
31 "When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy[c] angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. 33 And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. 34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' 37 "Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' 40 And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.' 41 "Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels:42 for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; 43 I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.' 44 "Then they also will answer Him,[d] saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?' 45 Then He will answer them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
I am not going to do a thorough exegesis of this passage. Rather I am going to share five things that we learn from Jesus about hell:
1. All of mankind will face a final judgment. At this final judgment, all mankind will be split into two groups: the righteous and the unrighteous. Jesus uses the imagery of sheep and goats quite fittingly, as these two groups are not arbitrarily divided, or divided by a small degree, but different in their fundamental natures. There is no such thing as neutrality when it comes to one's relationship with God -- a person is either a child of wrath and an enemy of God, opposing him in everything that they do or, a child of God, born through the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, deemed righteous because of life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
2. Hell is the consequence sin. Specifically, it is the consequence of sinning against a holy God. Notice that as Jesus lists the various sins of omission that the "goats" are guilty of, that He (Jesus) is the object of their sin? Again, Jesus said, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' There is a critical Biblical truth contained within this passage: no sin is against man alone. And this is why the consequences are so dire. While sin against a man may be dealt with by our earthly justice system, a sin against an infinite holy God must be dealt with by a heavenly justice system; and there is no way that a finite man can ever fulfill the consequence of sinning against an infinite and holy God, which is why hell must be his fate if he is to account for his sin.
3. God actively sends people to hell. Some teachers like to soften the Bible's teaching on hell by saying things like, "God doesn't send people to hell, people send themselves to hell." And while it is certainly true that people send themselves to hell in the sense that they are receiving the consequences of their own actions, this doesn't change that fact that God is active in his judgment.
C.S. Lewis famously said:
"I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful rebels to the end; that the doors of hell are locked on the inside." The Problem of Pain
And while there is a certain truth here – that it is those who reject God in this life, will not experience a change of heart in the life to come – too many Christians want to appease modern sensibilities of tolerance by minimizing the Scriptures testimony to God as the judge of mankind.
4. There will be great suffering in Hell. While a variety of images are used throughout the Bible for the suffering of hell, this passage uses the classic language of "eternal fire" -- adding that this is the punishment intended for Satan and demons, to clarify any doubt as to the terribleness of this punishment. Through the history of the church there has been much debate regarding the nature of the "flames" and other descriptive words used in the Bible to describe the tortures of hell, but I personally find Calvin very helpful on this point:
"Now, because no description can deal adequately with the gravity of God's vengeance against the wicked, their torments and tortures are figuratively expressed to us by physical things, that is by darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth, unquenchable fire, an undying worm gnawing at the heart. By such expressions the Holy Spirit certainly intended to confound all our senses with dread: as when he speaks of "a deep Gehenna prepared from eternity, fed with the fire and much wood; the breach of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, kindles it".
Calvin is in not way minimizing the tortures of hell by relegating the descriptions of hell to figurative language. If anything he is saying that these horrible images are the closest experiences that we have for describing hell -- and that the reality of hell's sufferings will be much worse.
But Calvin goes on:
As by such details we should be enabled in some degree to conceive the lot of the wicked, so we ought especially to fix our thoughts upon this: how wretched it is to be cut off from all fellowship with God. And not that only but so to feel his sovereign power against you that you cannot escape being pressed by it." (Calvin, Institutes III.XXV.12)
Calvin understood that ultimately the worst part of hell is not the natural tortures of it -- horrible though they may be -- but the eternal separation from relationship with God. But not just separation from relationship with him -- but to be eternal enemies of God.
5. Hell is eternal, just as heaven is eternal.
Of all the places where Jesus speaks of Hell, his passage most clearly testifies to its eternality. Let me re-read verse 46: 46 And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Notice that "everlasting punishment" is set next to "eternal life" – these are the two fates which await mankind, and they are both eternal.
And this is possibly one of the most scary things about hell – while the suffering will be excruciating, the only thing that makes it worse is that it will never end. We cannot comprehend this.
Consider the lyrics of Amazing Grace: "When we've been there ten thousand years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise, then when we'd first begun." For those condemned to hell, however, When they've been there 10,000 years, in sin and suffering; they've no less days of suffering then when they'd first begun. Eternal suffering is incomprehensible to our finite minds, and almost unbearable to consider for any extended length of time.
As Tito often says, what we have here is not a complicated Biblical teaching – but we do have something that is difficult. The final judgment and the eternal destiny of the souls of all people are serious matters, and probably not the first thing we turn to for our daily Bible reading. But thinking about them is necessary, and thinking about them accurately crucial, for since the beginning of the church there have been errors and heresies that twist the clear teaching of scripture to appease the sensibilities of man. So what I will now turn to is a few of the most common deviations from Biblical teaching when it comes to hell and the final judgment.
UNIVERSALISM
Universalism is the most overt of errors against a Christian view of hell, for at best it denies its permanence, and at worst it denies its existence.
I'm sure that many of us are already familiar with the general idea of universalism; in its most simplistic form, it says that everyone will be saved.
Francis Chan & Preston Sprinkle give a helpful overview of universalism in their book Erasing Hell, saying
"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."
They go on to elaborate that we can talk about religious pluralists who believe that equality of all religions. But then there are the so called "Christian" universalists, who ranged from what they call the "hopeful Universalists" who don't claim with certainty that all will be saved, but think that there is warrant in Scripture to think that it is possible. Yet there are also the "dogmatic Universalists" who teach that all will be saved, at least eventually.
Fundamental to any so-called "Christian" universalism is a belief in a second chance to accept Christ. This was the formulation of the church father Origen -- one of Christianity's the first systematic theologians -- who taught that given enough time, in eternity, not only would all mankind turn to Christ, but also Satan and all fallen angels as well. (It is important to note, however, that Origen was eventually condemned as a heretic at the Council of Constantinople in the 6th century).
Throughout the centuries universalism has continued to linger in various manifestations within the Christian world. A few that come to mind include George MacDonald, the well known fantasy author of tales such as The Princess and the Goblin and Phantasties; Karl Barth, the Swiss scholar, central to the neo-orthodoxy movement, who is esteemed by many as the most important theologian of the 20th century; and in the recent past, Rob Bell, former pastor of an urban Mars Hill church in Grand Rapids, Michigan (and not to be confused with Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle), with the publication of his book Love Wins.
Just to give you a flavor of this modern manifestation of so-called "Christian" universalism, here is an excerpts from Rob Bell's book:
I've written this book for all those, everywhere, who have heard some version of the Jesus story that caused their pule rate to rise, their stomach to church, and their heart to utter those resolute words, "I would never be a part of that."
You are not alone. There are millions of us.
This love compels us to question some of the dominant stories that are being told as the Jesus story. A staggering number of people have been taught that a select few Christians will spend forever in a peaceful, joyous place called heaven, while the rest of humanity spends forever in torment and punishment in hell with no chance for anything better. It's been clearly communicated to many that this belief is a central truth of the Christian faith and to reject it is, in essence, to reject Jesus. This is misguided and toxic and ultimately subverts the contagious spread of Jesus's message of love, peace, forgiveness, and joy that our world desperately needs to hear.
I hope that for everyone here, Bell's words seem foreign to Christianity. But it is important to note that Bell was a very influential teacher in Evangelicalism not even 10 years ago. He put out a popular series of videos (the Nooma series) that were embraced by conservative Evangelical churches. And while his book was largely dismissed by Evangelicals, there was an unfortunately large minority who embraced his thesis.
I could easily spend an entire Sunday school lesson examining the basis of so-called Christian universalism and show a Biblical case against it, but for this morning I would like to look at just one central dimension of it: the claim that you can get a second chance at salvation after you die.
This is central to Bell's own thesis in his book, and Chan and Sprinkle claim 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."
There are two clear Biblical cases against this position. The first is easy: there is no passage in the Bible that even alludes to the idea that anyone will have a chance to accept Christ after death.
The second is contained within the following passage from the Gospel of Luke:
And He said to them, 24 "Strive to enter through the narrow gate, for many, I say to you, will seek to enter and will not be able. 25 When once the Master of the house has risen up and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, Lord, open for us,' and He will answer and say to you, 'I do not know you, where you are from,' 26 then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.' 27 But He will say, 'I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.' (LukE 13:23-28)
While there is much that could be said of this passage, there is one thing that is clear: the door for salvation does not remain eternally open; there are those to for whom the door will be shut, and that will be a bitter and sorrowful day.
ANNIHILATIONISM
But while universalism is the most gross and blatant denial of hell, there are more subtle and cunning errors that I think that we may be more prone to accept, chief among them (in my view) is a position called Annihilationism.
Annihilationism, in short, claims that hell is a place of annihilation. It is not a place of eternal suffering and torment, but a place where all that is evil will be destroyed…for good.
Personally, there was a time when I found this view very compelling. In fact, when I came back to Christ when I was 21, there was a period in which I thought that I had lost my chance to be saved (based on a misinterpretation of the warning passages of Hebrews). During these days, the thought of hell was excruciating -- especially it eternality of it. Remembering those days still makes me shudder -- the thought of being damned to an eternity of suffering made me sick and almost crippled me.
In this season, even after I came around to believing that I had not lost out on my chance to be saved, thinking too long about hell would make me literally sick. So when I read about this idea of Annihilationism, I was drawn in. And there were verses that seemed to give it strong support, especially Matthew 10:28, which reads:
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
And yet, as I continued to wrestle with this doctrine, I never felt settled with it. I believe that this was because I had read too much of my Bible – there is simply too much of a testimony to the eternality of hell in Scripture to deny this aspect of it. In fact, it was the verse that I quoted earlier, Matthew 25:46, which cornered me: in this passage the eternality of heaven and hell are set immediately next to each other – making it very difficult to justify how the "eternal" for hell is somehow different from the "eternal" for heaven. I was cornered, and as difficult as it was to accept, the truth had been made known to me.
A BETTER STORY
There is a third and even more subtle error regarding Hell that I would also like to address this morning. It is not an official heresy or something that is widely taught, but it may be the most likely error to be found here among us this morning.
For some, there is a casual, maybe even embarrassed, acceptance of hell, but not a true embrace of it as being part of God's perfect plan and reconcilable with his goodness and love. This is something that I have struggled with over the years, and at points still struggle with to this day.
For those who may not be tracking with me, let me frame it like this:
God is infinitely holy and good in all that he does – including his decision to damn sinners to hell. And I frequently find myself kicking against this reality, hoping that it isn't so, thinking that surely there must be another way. However, when I say in my heart that I don't like this, what am I really saying? That I know better than God? That I have a better plan? That I can tell a better story than God?
And my suspicion is that some in this room, especially those who have given serious thought to hell, have struggled with this as well. Now, I don't want to give the impression that the struggle itself is sin – but I do think it is sin to settle with an attitude of, "well God will do what he will do, but I don't like it." This isn't much different from the attitude of the annihilationist or the universalist – they also don't like God's plan, they just rewrite the ending. But is accepting the ending, but saying that you hate, it any better?
For me, coming around on this issue took much time and prayer, conviction and repentance. It likely will for some of you too. But please don't settle. Please don't allow yourself to think that you know better than God. Rather, when you struggle, turn your eyes to him, turn your eyes to the cross, and remember that he is good in all that he does.
Listen to these words of N.D. Wilson – he gets it: Is [God] anti-gay? Is He anti-science? Does He think that the earth is the center of the universe and all the planets and stars go through drunken epicycles to lap us? Then so do I. (He would know, after all.) Does He think Darwin is an idiot or a prophet? Does His story include creatures meant for damnation till the end? Know that He is good and can do no evil. If that's His story, then there is no better story (whether we understand right now or not). And there is no other Jesus for us to turn to. We cannot swap God for a newer, greener, and more culturally sustainable model -- and we shouldn't want to." N.D. Wilson, B&C Jul/Aug 2011, p. 13
WHY WE NEED HELL Let me conclude this morning my addressing some specific reasons that we can't shirk this issue (other than that its Biblical) and how it positively shapes our thinking about God, sin, and the world.
THE URGENCY FOR GOSPEL EVANGELISM Thinking about hell should make us shudder, and we should be reminded of the horrible fate that awaits those who die outside of Christ. And while we, as Reformed Christians, firmly embrace the doctrines of God's sovereign grace in salvation, we must never forget that he has chosen us as his vessels in the world to spread his message of salvation. Today I have addressed some errors regarding hell that we must be careful to avoid, but let us also take a moment to consider an error that we fall into far to often: thinking that since God has elected some to salvation that we can kick back, relax, and watch the show.
Consider these words from the apostle Paul, contained within the majestic 9th chapter of Romans which so clearly testifies to God's sovereign grace:
I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— that 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. (Rom 9:1-3)
This is the same Paul who just verses later will unfold the weighty truths of God's sovereignty in salvation – but this does pacify his concern for the souls for his Jewish brothers and sisters who had not seen that Jesus was the messiah. And I think that we all know enough of our Bibles to have seen the great sacrifices that Paul made for the sake of spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Let us follow his example.
Let us take opportunity this morning to remember the urgency of spreading the Gospel, of taking serious our call as ambassadors of Christ, and remember to share the good news that has saved us from the horrible torments of hell.
THE HEINOUSNESS OF SIN Hell also helps us to see the heinousness of our sin. It is all to easy to forget how serious our sin is – but when you consider the eternal suffering that is the necessary consequence, you are forced to acknowledge that our sins are much worse than we would like to admit.
When I find myself doubting the necessity of hell, all I am doing is revealing my own ignorance of how serious and grave a thing it is to sin against a just and holy God. For if I truly understood what sin was, there would be no struggle to accept the reality of hell, but rather constant humility, awe and adoration of the God who saved me from it.
Sam Storms captures this well as he talks about Jonathan Edwards and his understanding of sin:
"In our therapeutic, anthropocentric world, many would say to this Puritan, "Ease up, Jon! Don't be so hard on yourself. You're not nearly as bad as you think you are. You just need a little help with your self-image." I can only conclude that Edwards' description is not the result of what we today would call "low self-esteem," but comes from a biblically-informed "high God-esteem"!
Could this also by why Edwards had such a profound view of hell and its eternal torments and the justice of unending punishment? Resistance to the concept of hell is the direct result of ignorance of God. With the knowledge of God comes the awareness of sin. And with the awareness of sin, hell seems not so unreasonable. We minimize God and thus find the notion of hell unjust." Sam Storms, Signs of the Spirit, p. 209
THE COSTS OF CHRIST'S SACRIFICE My final point this morning is really just the flip side of my previous point: to understand hell is to understand the cost of sin – that is, what Christ had to pay for us when he sacrificed his life for those who would believe.
D.A. Carson puts this much better than I could when he said:
"For at the end of the day, what hell measures is what Christ paid for those who escape hell. The measure of his torment, in ways I don't even pretend to understand, is the measures of his torment as the God-man, is the measure of the torment that we deserve. And he bore it. And if you see that and believe it, you will find it difficult to contemplate the cross for very long without tears.
May we remember this morning that all truth is God's truth, and that all truth should turn our hearts to God in praise. As difficult as it is to consider to realities of eternal punishment for those who die in sin, let us turn our hearts and eyes to the only true God, who is good in all that he does.
http://olympiabp.blogspot.com/2017/05/tough-teachings-of-jesus-hell.html
| 
