John Piper’s reply to a letter from a 12-year-old about heaven and hell: You asked what happens to people who live far away from the gospel and have never heard about Jesus and die without faith in him. Here is what I think the Bible teaches. God always punishes people because of what they know and fail to believe. In other words, no one will be condemned for not believing in Jesus who has never heard of Jesus. Does that mean that people will be saved and go to heaven if they have never heard of Jesus? No, that is not what God tells us in the Bible. The main passage in the Bible that talks about this is Romans 1:18–23. Here is what it says. Then I’ll make a comment or two. 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
Hell
Why Hell Is Integral to the Gospel
By Greg Gilbert: I’m sure you were overjoyed to learn that 9Marks has devoted an entire Journal on the topic of hell. In fact, it’s a topic that, if anything, makes us want to avert our eyes and think about something else entirely. For some, the horror of the Christian doctrine of hell—that it is a place of eternal, conscious torment where God’s enemies are punished—has led them not just to avert their eyes and minds, but to deny it entirely. “Surely,” they say, “hell is a fictional construct used to oppress people with fear; a God of love would never allow such a place to really exist.” There’s an emotional power to this argument, to be sure. No one, certainly no Christian, likes the idea of hell. At the same time, this doctrine isn’t just drapery on the side of the Christian worldview, something with no relevance to the structure of the faith itself. Nor is the doctrine
7 Truths About Hell
J.D. Greear: Concerning hell, C. S. Lewis once wrote, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power.” In many ways, I agree with him. No one, Christians included, should like the idea of hell. Those of us who believe in hell aren’t sadists who enjoy the idea of eternal suffering. In fact, the thought of people I know who are outside of Christ spending eternity in hell is heartbreaking. As a young Christian, when I began to learn about hell and its implications, I almost lost my faith. It was that disturbing. Hell is a difficult reality, but it is something that the Bible teaches, and we can’t fully understand God and his world unless we grapple with it. These seven truths should frame our discussion of hell. 1. Hell is what hell is because God is who God is. People speak glibly about “seeing God,” as if seeing God face-to-face would be a warm and fuzzy
What is Hell?
R.C. Sproul: We have often heard statements such as “War is hell” or “I went through hell.” These expressions are, of course, not taken literally. Rather, they reflect our tendency to use the word hell as a descriptive term for the most ghastly human experience possible. Yet no human experience in this world is actually comparable to hell. If we try to imagine the worst of all possible suffering in the here and now we have not yet stretched our imaginations to reach the dreadful reality of hell. Hell is trivialized when it is used as a common curse word. To use the word lightly may be a halfhearted human attempt to take the concept lightly or to treat it in an amusing way. We tend to joke about things most frightening to us in a futile effort to declaw and defang them, reducing their threatening power. There is no biblical concept more grim or terror-invoking than the idea of hell. It is so
Is it Okay for Christians to Believe in the Doctrine of Hell But Not Like It?
From Kevin DeYoung: It takes a certain courage to look at what the Bible teaches, not like it all that much, and still believe it. I am thankful for brothers and sisters who believe in hell or believe in complementarianism or believe in election and reprobation or believe homosexuality is a sin despite their internal protestations. It’s a good sign when we take our stand on the Bible even when we’d prefer to take our stand somewhere else. But it’s a better sign when we take our stand on the Bible and learn to love where the Bible stands. Take hell for example. Should Christians rejoice in the doctrine of hell? That’s a loaded question that does not allow for a simplistic answer. On the one hand, if God does not want any to perish, neither should we (2 Peter 3:9). Paul has great sorrow and unceasing anguish in his heart at the thought of his Jewish brothers falling under
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Let God be God – Erasing Hell by Francis Chan
Lloyd-Jones on the folly of thinking God is only love and ignoring punishment and hell
My thanks to Adrian Warnock for this: Lloyd-Jones could have been saying this for the 21st Century not the 20th. There really is nothing new under the sun: “All this modern preaching on the fact that God is love is an indication of the same attitude and spirit. We are told today that the old sermons that preached the law and talked about conviction of sin and called people to repentance were all wrong because they were legalistic . . .So it is said that we must return to the message of Jesus. We must get rid of all our theology, our argumentation and doctrine—it is all unnecessary. The business of preaching is to tell people that God is love. It does not matter what they are, or what they have been, or what they have done, or what they may do—God loves them. Nobody will ever be punished. There is no law; so there is no retribution and no
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Eternal Punishment and the Fate of Those Who Haven’t Heard
Justin Taylor: Here are two excellent posts that help to clear away some misconceptions about the biblical teaching on eternal punishment and those who haven’t heard the name of Jesus: Kevin DeYoung, “God’s Wrath: Consequence or Curse?“ Sam Storms, “Bell’s Hell and the Destiny of Those Who’ve Never Heard of Jesus“ Two excerpts follow, but I’d encourage you to read both all the way through. DeYoung: Divine punishment—hell, in its eternal form—is not simply what we get because we make poor decisions or decide to live a selfish life. Hell is what we get because God is offended by our sin and punishes it. We see everywhere in Scripture that divine wrath is a curse on the ungodly, not a mere consequence for self-centered decisions. Hell is much more than God simply allowing us to have our own way and to experience all the bad effects of our choices. Hell is God’s active, just, holy wrath poured out on the
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Edwards on why hell is eternal
“The crime of one being despising and casting contempt on another, is proportionably more or less heinous, as he was under greater or less obligations to obey him. And therefore if there be any being that we are under infinite obligation to love, and honour, and obey, the contrary towards him must be infinitely faulty. Our obligation to love, honor and obey any being is in proportion to his loveliness, honorableness, and authority. . . . But God is a being infinitely lovely, because he hath infinite excellency and beauty. . . . So sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving infinite punishment. . . . The eternity of the punishment of ungodly men renders it infinite . . . and therefore renders it no more than proportionable to the heinousness of what they are guilty of” “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,” The Works of Jonathan
We Must Feel the Truth of Hell
From John Piper’s Brothers, We Are Not Professionals: A Plea to Pastors for Radical Ministry: I must feel the truth of hell–that it exists and is terrible and horrible beyond imaginings forever and ever. “These will go away into eternal punishment” (Matt. 25:46). Even if I try to make the “lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15) or the “fiery furnace” (Matt. 13:42) a symbol, I am confronted with the terrifying thought that symbols are not overstatements but understatements of reality. Jesus did not choose these pictures to tell us that hell is easier than burning. …If I do not believe in my heart these awful truths – believe them so that they are real in my feelings – then the blessed love of God in Christ will scarcely shine at all. The sweetness of the air of redemption will be hardly detectable. The infinite marvel of my new life will be commonplace. The wonder that to me, a child of hell, all
God’s Love and God’s Wrath
My thanks to Tony Reinke for posting this: Dr. Don Carson writes the following in his outstanding article “God’s Love and God’s Wrath” published in Bibliotheca Sacra, vol. 156 (1999), pages 388–390: The Bible speaks of the wrath of God in high-intensity language. “The Lord Almighty is mustering an army for war. … Wail, for the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. … See, the day of the Lord is coming—a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger—to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it” (Isa. 13:4, 6, 9). Even allowing for the unusual nature of language in the apocalyptic genre, Revelation 14 includes some of the most violent expressions of God’s wrath found in all literature. … How, then, do God’s love and His wrath relate to each other? One evangelical cliché has it that God hates the sin but loves the sinner. There is a small element of truth
Keller on The Importance of Hell
Below is the conclusion to Tim Keller’s thoughtful piece on the importance of hell. Here are the main points: 1. It is important because Jesus taught about it more than all other Biblical authors put together. 2. It is important because it shows how infinitely dependent we are on God for everything. 3. It is important because it unveils the seriousness and danger of living life for yourself. 4. The doctrine of hell is important because it is the only way to know how much Jesus loved us and how much he did for us. Conclusion: The doctrine of hell is crucial-without it we can’t understand our complete dependence on God, the character and danger of even the smallest sins, and the true scope of the costly love of Jesus. Nevertheless, it is possible to stress the doctrine of hell in unwise ways. Many, for fear of doctrinal compromise, want to put all the emphasis on God’s active judgment, and none on
Already Not Yet 