The HELL You Say!
Who, What, Where, Why, and When: Visions of hell from MacDonald, Lewis, and other luminaries.
"For the Reformers, purgatory represented nothing less than a denial that the death of Christ was sufficient to save us from the guilt of our sins and the punishment we deserve.” But, points out Wells, “to reject the satisfaction model of purgatory is not necessarily to reject the sanctification model,” which is “entirely compatible with Protestant theology..."
George MacDonald, contemplating the scenario that a sinner might refuse to ever repent, agreed that annihilation would be an appropriate fate; but such a defeat for God seemed to him unimaginable. Nonetheless, I think he’d agree in principle with what Stackhouse writes early in his essay: “Hell is not a destination that God arbitrarily assigns to the recalcitrant sinner. Hell is simply the natural result of a moral agent choosing to separate from God, the source of life, and go some other way…”
George MacDonald famously wrote that he “turn[s] with loathing from the god of Jonathan Edwards,” a statement that has eternally endeared him to John Piper, Tim Keller, and legions of evangelicals everywhere. And yet — brace yourselves, MacDonald fans — I believe that the Scotsman would not at all "turn with loathing” from the doctrine of ECT, in other guises...
When I began to doubt the doctrine of ECT, I was approached by several Christians, on many occasions, who felt led by the Spirit to tell me that I was stepping onto a very slippery slope, and that I was in danger of backsliding. At first, I felt alarmed. Was I sliding down a greasy slope toward heresy? It surely felt like it, at the time. I kept telling myself that I couldn’t accept UR no matter how much it rang true to my soul. It was heresy, and I could not become a heretic...
During a particular Sunday morning service—after the pastor had concluded his message and after the music director strummed his final chord—the youth pastor was closing the service with some final thoughts. Seeing how I, at the time, attended a Southern Baptist church that taught the prevalent doctrine of hell, I should have been the last person caught off guard by the situation in which I had placed myself...
Though He would be crucified and buried, He would rise from the dead and build His Church. Jesus was emphasizing the fact that the powers of death could not hold him in. Not only would the Church be established in spite of the powers of Hades or hell, but it would also thrive in spite of these powers. The Church will never fail; though generation after generation succumbs to the power of physical death, yet other generations will arise to perpetuate the Church...
A key tenet of John Piper’s best-selling book Desiring God is what he calls “Christian Hedonism”. I’ll paraphrase the definition of Piper’s Christian Hedonism for the sake of brevity -- Christian Hedonism is the belief that Christians have a duty to find pleasure in God. Piper explains in the first chapter how he came to understand this truth.
Are people inherently worthless? Some Christians believe so; others do not. I would like to suggest that if ECT is true, people must be inherently worthless. Otherwise, God would never abandon those who are inherently priceless. If we are of no value outside of Christ, why would God bother giving us a conscience or a system of moral laws for which we are accountable? Inherently worthless creatures are no less worthless if they know the difference between good and evil and choose the former. If we are only of value to God if we are in Christ, what motivated him to send his Son to lay down his life for the world in the first place? We cannot be loved and worthless at the same time because love evidences inherent worth; so, too, do grace and mercy.
It must sadly be admitted, however, that the large percentage of fundamental Christians do not hope for universal salvation. Indeed, they are afraid to hope for it. At the same time, many seem to feel a gleeful righteousness to envision the miseries of the lost.
I find this delight indicative of a serious cancer in the church. I think we must ask why this fascination exists. Why do the very people who have been commissioned to take the good news of Fatherhood into the world, reject the high and perfect and infinitely forgiving Fatherhood of God?
When I ask Christians if they believe Endless Conscious Torment (ECT) is an essential doctrine, most often they say that it is. Some understand that it is not a doctrine over which we should divide, but the vast majority of Christians feel rather strongly about this doctrine. They genuinely believe that the doctrine of ECT is an essential doctrine. To those who feel this way, I have one simple question for you...
From the moment of birth, death is just over the horizon. It is much like the sun as it rises in the east- beautiful and bright. With it, comes anticipation and hope. Anticipation, for what is to come. Hope, for seemingly an endless array of possibilities. At midday comes satisfaction for all that has been accomplished and eagerness to complete what is yet undone. As dusk fades into evening, our anticipation and hope for what could have been and what was ours is realized as a vapor that belonged to the wind all along. ..
Don’t you just hate it when someone says you are deceived or dishonest about one thing or another simply because they believe they have received a revelation from the Holy Spirit? Me, too!! What about those who believe differently and are just as sure that the Holy Spirit has revealed truth to them? What makes one or the other so special as to have the Holy Spirit on his side rather than on hers?
How often have you heard, “They were not saved to begin with.” when someone claims to have defected from the Faith? Christians who believe in eternal security or “once saved; always saved” are usually those who would dare to say such a thing. However, this blog has nothing to do with that theology. Rather, I would like to focus on the rationale behind it all...
My boss, Onesimus, is trying to find out everything he can about hell, so when he heard of Charles Watson Sr.'s forthcoming book, Hell in a Nutshell- The Mystery of His Will, he told me to get a hold of this fine fellow and find out what he knows and if he'd ever run into our man George. So I got him on the line...
