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Hello, I'm Kevin DeYoung, pastor at Christ Covenant Church in Matthews, North Carolina, and you are listening to Doctrine Matters. Each week on Doctrine Matters, we explore the rich doctrine of the Christian faith. We'll pull from the church's long history, complex debates, and over the course of the year, the hope is that we'll begin to frame out what is a clear, accessible, systematic theology, be looking at different Christian doctrines and their relationship to each other. And the hope, Lord willing, is we will grasp more and more the riches and the beauty of God's word. Thanks for listening. Let's turn to this week's Doctrine Matters. We come in these last several weeks of the year to the last head of doctrine, called eschatology, means last things. So here we're talking about some of the perennially difficult questions related to the end times. And we're not going to be able to, but scratch the surface on some of them. You can think about eschatology, both cosmic and personal. So the cosmic questions about the millennium, maybe the state of Israel, about the timing of Christ's return, what, what exactly happens at the final judgment? Just as importantly and perhaps for many people in the church, actually much more poignantly felt is personal eschatology. That is what happens when we die? What does the meaning and the end of our life look like? So we want to spend a week thinking about hell, and then a week speaking and thinking about heaven. And then we'll come in the last two weeks to some of these cosmic questions. So first, then the doctrine of hell. We have to be, and we want to be in the same place where scripture is. And though the doctrine of hell is in one sense not something to be relished, yet it is to be believed upon. And we believe it not thinking ourselves somehow better than the Bible. Sometimes people can wrongly describe it like that. Well, if it were up to me, there would be no hell. As if you're on the side of the good guys. But, well, God and the Bible, we just, we gotta. We gotta believe what the Bible says. Even though I'm a little bit better than the Bible. Now, the reason there is a doctrine of hell, it's because God is a God of justice. Sin and evil are absolutely heinous. Any analogy is going to fail somewhat. But you think about any. A good story, a movie that has a villain and everything within you wants to see this villain get his comeuppance. I don't go to movie theaters very often anymore, but I've been to some over the years where at that climactic scene where good is triumphing over evil. The theater starts to clap because they realize this character or this side is wicked and evil and they have been oppressing the good guys and to be put into their place to be on the side of justice and it's just wrath is satisfying and is good and it need not be a vindictive emotion. Of course we're sinful human beings and so we have that to fight against. But we believe in God as holy and just and therefore there is a hell. Death for the Christian results in good things ultimately because we get to be with Christ and we leave behind the consequences of the fall and we see Christ face to face.
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Hell is what faces the non believer on the other side of death. Now we need to get some terminology straight. There are three main words for death and hell in the Bible. Sheol, Hades, and Gehenna. Just a few thoughts on each the Hebrew word Sheol, which is often left untranslated in newer English versions, has the basic meaning of death or the grave. It can refer to the place every human being goes upon death, but it can also refer more specifically to a place of punishment for the wicked. Even in the Old Testament there was the promise of deliverance from Sheol for God's people. We see this various times in the Psalms. The Greek word hades occurs 10 times in the New Testament, and given its coupling with death, think of that refrain death and Hades. Hades seems to be a reference to that intermediate state for the wicked. Hades is the place of torment prior to the resurrection, where the dead go opposite Abraham's bosom. Abraham's bosom is a euphemism for the place that the righteous go awaiting the final resurrection. Hades is the place where the wicked go. And then we have the Greek word gehenna. It occurs 12 times in the New Testament. About a thousand Years ago, around AD 1200, Rabbi David Kimhi claimed that the Valley of Hinnom was a garbage dump filled with trash and cadavers to burn, which has led many well meaning pastors over the years and commentators to say that Gehenna was a smoldering rubbish heap. But there doesn't seem to be any ancient or archaeological evidence to support this claim. Rather, the word comes from the Hebrew Gehennom, meaning valley of Hinom, a steep ravine outside of Jerusalem. In the Old Testament, this is where the Israelites would sometimes sacrifice their children to the ammonite God Molech. Importantly, 11 of the 12 uses of Gehenna in the New Testament come from Jesus. The word is translated Hell, it's a place of eternal punishment. And though the ancient rabbis garbage dump is not the right referent, likely we do have that striking image from the Old Testament that is, is a place of destruction. It's a place where children were sacrificed. And it is a place in the New Testament described with great, striking, overwhelming detail that is eternal fire, outer darkness, weeping and gnashing of teeth, a lake that burns with fire and sulfur. Now whether these descriptions are meant to be taken literally or not, they speak of literal pain and torment. So yes, we acknowledge there are apocalyptic ways of describing these things.
- [07:11]
This doesn't mean we're not taking the Bible seriously or the Bible for, for what it says. Rather, we understand there's different genre. Now even if it were not literal fire, and I'm not sure that it is not, but if it's not literal fire, it doesn't somehow save us, you know, any pain because it's described with these words, fire, sulfur, weeping, gnashing teeth. It is meant to conjure in our minds something unspeakably horrible. It's described in these bracing terms so we might avoid it and run to Christ. Hell, it's worth saying, is the place of divine punishment. Now why do I underscore that? Because it has become common for many Christians to describe hell as simply our freely chosen identity apart from God. This is famously espoused by C.S. lewis in the Great Divorce. Lewis argues that Hell is our own freely chosen self absorption, our idolatry let loose for all eternity. The gates of hell may be locked, but they are locked from the inside. That's the way of describing it, that hell is God saying, you want these hellish things? You have locked the door upon yourself. I leave you to your own hellish desires. Now there is an element of truth in all this. No one in hell is, is truly penitent. We ought never to think God is punishing people in hell or they're there, but yet now they're truly repentant and truly sorry. No, God doesn't punish people for a few sins in this life and then keep them locked up forever as they pour out their hearts in genuine faith. Oh God, I'm so sorry. I repent. I believe in you. And God says no, you committed a sin in this life. No, they continue to sin. They continue in their impertinence. There may be some regret a la the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 so. But they are nevertheless still persisting in their objection to God. So Lewis's description of hell can be a good reminder that God does give us over to our sinful desires. And yes, part of that punishment is God saying, okay, pursue your own sinful ways. So in a limited sense, Hell, you can say, is God giving us over to what we want. And yet if that's all we say about hell. And my concern here is that we're not doing justice to the full biblical record, but we're landing on one sort of minor, interesting way of describing hell, and we're avoiding the larger offense and scandal of, of hell. We're giving people a distorted view if we make it seem as if this is just God saying, I leave you to your own desserts and you will suffer because of what you have chosen. Now, yeah, there's that. But God punishes. He actively punishes. After the first sin, God decisively sent the couple away, drove them out of the garden. It's not like they wandered out of the garden. And God said, okay, if you never want to come back to the garden, then I guess that's your punishment. At the time of the flood, God responded to that wickedness. He said, I will blot out man that I have created. In Deuteronomy 28, he promises covenantal blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience. John 24, or rather Joshua 24, if you forsake the Lord and serve foreign gods, and he will turn and do you harm and consume you. The New Testament says the same thing. Jesus says, fear God, who can destroy body and soul in hell. Romans 1, yes, does speak about God giving over the ungodly. But Romans 2 speaks clearly of wrath stored up for the day of wrath, when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. 2nd Peter 3:7. The heavens and the earth and now exist are stored up for fire. Hebrews 12:29. Our God is a consuming fire. So while it's not wrong to describe hell as, say, eternal separation from God or a Christless eternity, and there's at least, you know, a passage in Thessalonians to use that separation language. The problem is, if that's all we say, we're probably trying to, or maybe we're not trying to, but we end up muting the hard edges. We end up softening the angularity of this doctrine. We say, well, hell is just Christless eternity. Well, people don't want Christ now to say you're going to go to hell and you never have Christ is not really much of a punishment. You know, it's like telling me you're going to go to a broccoli less eternity. Oh boy. Well, I don't like broccoli. Now these euphemisms must not swallow up the unpopular notion that God's judgment is more than a lack of something or a lack of someone. It is a divine curse upon the ungodly. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction. 2 Thessalonians 1:9. Let us not soften a blow that God in his gracious warning mercy does not mean to soften wrath. Here's one way to put it. Wrath, divine wrath, is not only a result, it is a recompense. So not only a result. That's what you get. Those are your choices. You have put this upon yourself. It is also a recompense. God is active and just in punishing sin. A few voices throughout Church history have from time to time argued for universalism, the notion that in the end all people will be saved. And yet there is really no good evidence in the Scriptures taken as a whole to support this, which is why it has been considered outside the bounds of orthodoxy. Yes, there are some passages about God uniting all things, bringing all things together.
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But there's no indication that people are going to grow or mature or repent in the afterlife. And, and there's no indication that the bringing all things together means that in the end everyone comes to Christ. Why warn about those who do not inherit the kingdom, for example, if everyone in the end inherits the kingdom, why talk about how, how fearful it is to fall into the hands of the living God, if really there is nothing to fear? Richard Baucombe, good scholar, not a really conservative scholar, but does some fine work. I just put that parentheses just so you hear this, as He Himself puts it, quote. Until the 19th century, almost all Christian theologians taught the reality of eternal torment in Hell.
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The Son of Man will send his angels, they will gather out of his kingdom, Jesus says, 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. Neither can we get out from the uncomfortability of hell by espousing annihilationism. This is the belief that God's final judgment upon the wicked is not eternal conscious punishment, but rather the extinction of existence, sometimes called conditional immortality, meaning eternal life, is for those who believe in Christ, they live forever. And if you don't believe in Christ that destruction is an oblivion, you simply cease to exist. And in the 20th century, some well known Anglicans, like J.W. wynnum, P.E. hughes, most famously John Stott, argued for annihilationism. And it does have an existential appeal. And Stott acknowledges he's drawn to it for that reason. He also gave biblical support, which we'll talk about here. But the, the Bible, whatever our emotional resonance might be, it might be easier to tell people, okay, you're sort of like your, your choices are either infinity good or just nothing. Well, that's easier to swallow than eternal punishment. But the Scriptures just won't allow us to do that.
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Yes, we can say only God is inherently immortal. Ours is always a contingent immortality. But this doesn't mean that immortality is only given to some. The Bible frequently depicts the wicked as experiencing ongoing torment. The rich man said, I am in anguish. The worm is said to never die, fire never put out. This speaks of something that has continuing, lasting duration. And some people say, well, the smoke of their torment goes up forever. Not the fire, just the smoke, just the reminder of it. But that's special pleading. The Greek word here is used always of conscious suffering, this torment. We say the smoke of their torment is not just the torment that happened. This is not the smoke that reminds us, well, they don't exist anymore. The beast and the false prophet are tormented day and night, just as the wicked have no rest day or night. Eternal life stands opposite the second death. But we should not think that the second death is some kind of oblivion. I mean, is the good news of eternal life simply consciousness? You have to take those two as a pair. You can't say, well, here's the good news, consciousness. Here's the bad news, lack of consciousness. Though the righteous receive eternal life is the resurrection unto life, while the wicked receive not the resurrection unto the cessation of existence, but the resurrection of judgment. We'll just finish here. William Shedd, the 19th century Presbyterian theologian, famously, maybe infamously to some, has a chapter in his Dogmatics on heaven that is a page and a half, while his chapter on hell is 58 pages lopsided. True, but it says more about the modern world's opposition to hell than Shed's dislike for heaven. The reality is this doctrine needs to be defended. Not because we, we relish the thought of eternal punishment, but because it is such a clear teaching in Scripture and of Jesus himself, and has been for virtually all of church history and all orthodox voices in church history. Founded in ethics here, Shed in law and in judicial reason, as well as unquestionably taught by the author of Christianity. It is no wonder that the doctrine of eternal retribution, in spite of selfish prejudices and appeals to human sentiment, has always been a belief a of Christendom, that Shed it is historical, it is biblical, and dare I say, it's even necessary for practical discipleship.
- [18:48]
The reality of judgment is brought to the fore often in the New Testament. Hebrews 12 it makes us tremble before the holiness and wrath of God. Matthew 10 it leads us to repent of our sins. Turn to Christ. 2nd Peter 3 it spurs us on to holiness and godliness. Romans 10 it prompts us to pray for and plead with God for the lost, and it can give us the freedom to forgive the worst crimes against us. Romans 12 Knowing that God will execute final judgment in his own time.
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Thanks again for joining us on Doctrine Matters. I'm your host Kevin DeYoung. Our hope and prayer is that this has been helpful to you as you look at Scripture and try to understand the best of our theological tradition as Christians. Please consider subscribing to Doctrine Matters and if this has been encouraging, consider passing it on to others. If you'd like to learn more about this week's doctrine can ask your pastor for good resources or check out my year long mini systematic theology book called Daily Doctrine to Available in print or audio from Crossway.org the doctrine matters podcast is produced by Crossway. To learn more, visit Crossway.org.