An Exercise in Refuting False Doctrine
Thus far we have examined the Biblical doctrine of eternal punishment from four different passages in Revelation, Matthew, Mark and Luke. It is vital we continue to read passages from the epistles and the prophets in addition to studying key themes as they are developed in the Old Testament. While we may wonder at the importance of retaining and strengthening such an unattractive doctrine, we must proceed by faith. With so many passages of Scripture testifying to the eternal punishment of the reprobate, we must trust that this teaching is necessary to our faith and formative to our godliness. While many seek to establish contradictions between the doctrine of Hell and the doctrine of God’s character and the Gospel, they must engage in deception to succeed.
Introduction
One of the openings false teachers play is the injection of confusion into otherwise clear topics. This kind of soothsaying blurs lines, softens corners, merges shapes and generally tries to convince folks with a child-like faith that their simple trust in Christ according to the plain meaning of the Bible is woefully inadequate. Allow me to give you two examples, and then we will test just how clear or unclear the Bible is concerning this doctrine:
No truly accomplished New Testament scholar, for instance, believes that later Christianity’s opulent mythology of God’s eternal torture chamber is clearly present in the scriptural texts. It’s entirely absent from St. Paul’s writings; the only eschatological fire he ever mentions brings salvation to those whom it tries (1 Corinthians 3:15). Neither is it found in the other New Testament epistles, or in any extant documents (like the Didache) from the earliest post-apostolic period. There are a few terrible, surreal, allegorical images of judgment in the Book of Revelation, but nothing that, properly read, yields a clear doctrine of eternal torment. Even the frightening language used by Jesus in the Gospels, when read in the original Greek, fails to deliver the infernal dogmas we casually assume to be there. In general, in fact, New Testament scholars are keenly aware that neither Jesus nor Paul advanced a picture of eternal torment like that of later Christian teaching.
-David Bentley Hart
Another example will confirm this strategy. A campaign of obfuscation, an injection of confusion is clearly necessary in order to push forward any false teaching, including false doctrine on Hell. The perspicacity of Scripture is anathema to both doubting churchmen and heretics:
We who wrestle with the most effective means of uncovering and communicating these long hidden truths to an occasionally fearful, often skeptical new generation of open-minded Christians are part of the awakening ourselves. We too have had to grow out of old orthodoxies and into a new paradigm. I have faced the same struggles as those of you who have read my words. This is no antiseptic spiritual quest. This is a very difficult struggle. These are hard things to understand. Future generations may look back on my halting attempt to bring light into the dark corners of these fading orthodoxies and exclaim, “You scarcely grasped how great the purposes of God truly are. Your efforts to penetrate the high things of God were but the fumbling words of a second grader trying to tell a first grader what he sees. In reality, you saw but through a glass darkly yourself.” I recognize, therefore that a book like this, and those others of our time that strive to expand our perceptions, are all incomplete… vague and shadowy efforts to understand what may yet lie light years beyond us. Still, however, the quest must go on. Light brings more light. We all continue to grow toward truth together. The conundrum at its most basic reduces to this: what are we to make of hell, and the imagery that has grown up around the imaginative world associated with this most controversial yet uncertain doctrine of Christianity?
Michael Phillips
After examining the Scriptures to see if these things are so, we come to a conclusion. Any fog of uncertainty regarding the doctrine of eternal punishment resides entirely in the hearts of the skeptics. They project this uncertainty upon the Scriptures and seek collaborators in their doubt.
Everlasting Destruction in 1 Thessalonians
It has long been a fancy of false teachers to put the teachings of Christ and the teachings of Paul into the same jar, just to watch them fight. When the longed for mortal combat does not commence, they begin shaking the jar to create their own violence. Cataloging the results of their academic endeavors, they soberly report their findings… The Bible is too complex for Fundamentalist yokels to use properly. It turns out that Jesus and Paul, though they disagreed on a few things, believed pretty much like the enlightened scholars of today. Since the claim has been made that Paul had nothing to say about Hell (eternal torture or eschatological fire), it might be worthwhile to see what Paul says about Hell. Does he indicate it’s eternality? Does it have anything to do with fire?
1 Thessalonians 1:6-10 since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, 7 and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, 10 when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed.
Paul labors for the patience of the Saints in this letter. The endurance of the saints depends upon the promises of God, including those which affirm God’s vengeance and ultimate justice concerning their enemies. His language here mirrors that of Christ in Matthew 25:31-46. Final judgment is envisioned, and it is both fiery and eternal. It appears that, contrary to the false teachers, Paul does write about eternal hellfire and does so in agreement with Jesus Christ.
Eternal Judgment in Hebrews
David Bentley Hart also claims that eternal eschatological fire does not exist in the other New Testament epistles. All he does with this claim is encourage the saints to read and study their Bibles even more. Let’s survey three passages from the Sermon to the Hebrews which speaks to God’s holy eternal judgment. Hebrews 6:1-3 Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits. The preacher to the Hebrews (if not Paul, one who was deeply influenced by Paul) talks about “eternal judgment” as elementary to the teachings of Christ, foundational for Christian belief. This basic belief is summed up in Hebrews 9:27 And as it is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment.
These expressions in both Hebrews 6 and 9 receive more attention in Hebrews 10:26-31, 39 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. . . . 39 But we are not of those who draw back to perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
We need to ask the question, “what is worse punishment than being physically devoured by the fiery indignation of God, as He expends His wrath without mercy upon those who rebelled? Hophni and Phinehas are good examples of this kind of judgment (Leviticus 10:1-2). What is worse than this? What would it mean to fall into the hands of the living God as He takes His vengeance in His own immortal, immutable fashion? We have such an expression in verse 39, “perdition.” What is perdition? Paul uses this term 5 times in his letters (Philippians 1:28; 3:19; 2 Thessalonians 2:3; 1 Timothy 6:9). Peter also uses it five times (2 Peter 2:1, 2, 3, 3:7, 16). It means a perishing, ruin or destruction which consists of eternal misery in Hell.
When credentialed scholars band together as a conclave of “experts” to expunge the doctrine of eternal punishment from the Scriptures, all the saints have to do is stand up, open the text and read it aloud. The erasure of Hell from the Bible is wish-fulfillment thinking upon the part of doubting churchmen, and has no exegetical, hermeneutical, doctrinal or pastoral value.
Spirits in Prison in 1 Peter
1 Peter 3:18-20 follows Peter’s exhortations to the saints regarding persecution. He does not want them to become overly discouraged when they are resisted, slandered and despised by pagans and false teachers etc… The key to endurance is not one of covering up and smoothing out, and ensuring that nothing of Christ shines through (thus seeking to avoid any upset feelings on the part of those in darkness). The key is to look to the Savior, Jesus Christ. What happened to Him? It turns out that the heart of the message we preach also holds the answer for the persecution it naturally generates. Jesus suffered as well, and He also proclaimed the truth to those who rejected it.
1 Peter 3:18-20 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive by the Spirit, 19 by whom also He went and preached to the spirits in prison, 20 who formerly were disobedient, when once the Divine longsuffering waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight souls, were saved through water.
In v. 18 Peter affirms that Jesus Christ suffered and died upon the cross as a substitutionary atonement, suffering for the sins of others—behold the Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world! Christ is just (righteous). We are unjust (unrighteous). Romans 3:19-28 demonstrates that by our faith in Christ, His sufferings satisfy (propitiate) God’s offended glory and Christ’s righteousness is accounted to us. In this way God is both just and the justifier of the ungodly. Jesus does all this as our only Mediator so that He may bring us to God. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Him. As fully man, He died in the flesh, but was bodily raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit. So also now, all who are born again are raised from sin’s death by the Spirit, and we will be resurrected bodily on the last day.
In v.19-20a Peter focuses on the preincarnate ministry of Christ. Having just spoken of the Holy Spirit, and just encouraged the Saints concerning their persecution, Peter now relates that in/by/through the Holy Spirit, Jesus had preached Gospel truth to some who were once disobedient and even now resided in prison. Their bodies had been buried by the flood, but their spirits continued on under judgment. As metal bars do not constrain spirits, we may infer that Peter is using “prison” as a euphemism for Hell. Remember that Jesus says Hell was created for the Devil and his angels (Matthew 25:41). Notice that it was by the Holy Spirit that Christ preached to these rebels. When did he preach to them? When they were in prison? Did He die on the cross and go to Hell and preach sermons? (This is one view held by some Christians). This is hardly possible as Jesus assured the thief on the cross, “today you will be with me in Paradise.” When did Jesus preach to these disobedient folks? This question is answered by the following verses.
Consider the timing offered in vs. 20b. Remember it took Noah 120 years to gather supplies and build the ark (Genesis 6:3). During this time he also preached to his neighbors as to the coming doom, calling them to repentance. Noah, as an anointed preacher of God was filled with the Holy Spirit, and by this same Holy Spirit, Christ preached through Noah to these disobedient persons who died in the flood and are now in prison (in Hell). Notice the contrast. Noah and his family were saved from the judgment while those who persecuted and ridiculed them perished. Such assurances to the saints (of their deliverance and the defeat of their enemies) are common throughout the Scriptures and are even described as the “patience of the saints” in Revelation 14. But we must support these claims. How do we know that Noah was a preacher of righteousness and that Christ preached through him by the Holy Spirit?
Consider 1 Peter 1:10-12, Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, 11 searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 12 To them it was revealed that, not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things which angels desire to look into. Christ by the Spirit preached through the prophets, of which Noah was one.
Also consider 2 Peter 2:4-5 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; 5 and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; So, when Peter states that Christ in the Spirit preached to the disobedient of Noah’s day, and that their spirits are now in prison (Hell), we have these other two passages by Peter which coordinate our interpretation.
Prison is an effective euphemism for Hell. The kind of prison we think of today is not the kind utilized in the Roman empire and the Ancient Near East. Prison was not a primary punishment, but an attendentant punishment. You were cast into prison as a temporary waiting place until your trial. The trial, if you were not a Roman citizen, would likely mean your death. For spirits to be in prison, means that they are being punished currently, with an expectation of trial and sentencing. The Last Day will see the resurrection of the righteous and the unrighteous, and the unrighteous will be sentenced to an everlasting destruction. This coheres with the passages we have already examined. Next time we will begin to survey the Old Testament and its themes of eternal, fiery judgment.
