Like many others, I don't like the idea of an eternal Hell and am
puzzled at a loving and gracious God who would allow this. At the same time, we
are in the Easter season; the idea of God himself dying (and the Father
allowing the Son to die) on the cross for us is also grotesque.
These two incredible and horrible truths resolve each other when one
realizes that the cross means that no one needs to go to Hell. Without the
provision of the cross, Hell is the worst, most malicious and evil thing ever
perpetrated on man by a supposedly loving Creator-God. Without Hell the cross
is unnecessary, and a God who would allow his Son to die for no reason becomes
the most despicable being one could imagine. The cross and Hell are problems
which essentially resolve each other.
In Love Wins, Rob Bell argues that the idea of Hell as
eternal punishment is simply the adoption of Greek terminology by Paul and
others to describe the fate of those who reject God. They contend that there
will be punishment, but it is not eternal and ongoing. That idea of unending
separation and punishment came because some in the early church assumed that
when the New Testament adopted Greek language (Hades, Tartarus) it was also
adopting the Greek descriptions of that place and state. In fact, Bell and
others would say that Paul and others did not intend to agree that these
non-Christian concepts described reality: they were simply using the language
of their day to talk about a state of punishment - which Bell and others
believe and hope will not be eternal. Eventually love will win and all will be
saved.
Allow me to point out a couple of flaws in this understanding. First
of all, in 2 Thess. 1:5-10 Paul affirms God's justice and "everlasting
destruction" and exclusion from the presence of God (v. 8) for those
"who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus"
(v. 7, NIV). Paul does not use the Greek terms for this place of everlasting
destruction in this passage, but he most certainly affirms what it is like.
This argues that it was not a failure of the early church to read Paul
correctly that resulted in understanding Hell as eternal, but rather that Paul
explicitly understood it that way himself.
Others, who identify themselves as annihilationist, say that the
wicked dead will rise but ultimately are destroyed and will not suffer
eternally. The effect of the punishment is eternal, not the
punishment itself. A variation on this is something called “conditional
immortality.” Its proponents argue that the punishment is eternal in the sense
that those who die having rejected God will simply cease to exist. Only people
who accept salvation will have life beyond the grave. This is completely out of
sync with all the judgment passages of Scripture, including 2 Thess 1:5-10.
Daniel 12:2 makes it clear that both universalism ("all will
eventually be saved") and annihilationism ("the punishment is not
eternal, only its effect") are wrong. Daniel 12:2 states that,
"Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to
everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." Once again we
see the state and condition of the lost described without use of ancient place
names like Sheol or Hades. This argues that the description itself is a correct
one, not simply adopted by assuming that the pagan term described reality. The
passage is also from the Old Testament, and the state described is therefore
not a result of incorrect Greek understandings from the world of the New
Testament. Further, the idea of "shame and everlasting contempt" has
no meaning whatsoever if the duration of the punishment is finite, resolved
either by everyone ultimately repenting or being destroyed. A non-existent
entity cannot feel shame and contempt, nor do those who are redeemed.
Will love win? Actually, it already has won. On the cross love broke
the power of death and Satan (Heb 2:14-15; 1 Cor 15:54-57). Love Won on the
cross, which offers a provision for eternal reconciliation with God. It will
not do so by a misreading of the Bible so as to limit Hell.
