Hell Is a Hot Topic--Again

[This essay of mine was published in the Allentown Morning Call on Friday, August 12, 2011.] 

         Hell is a hot topic again. The recent book, Love Wins, by Rob Bell suggests that eventually all people will be saved. This would not be surprising if it came from a liberal theologian who opines that the Bible is a collection of myths. Bell, however, believes in the divinity, virgin birth, miracles and resurrection of Christ. What shall we make of his proposal?

         (1) Bell has apparently been troubled by a sense that eternal torment is incompatible with God’s love. We ought to be disturbed by the biblical images of hell, but that does not mean we should cast them aside. As I point out in The Beauty of God for a Broken World, God Himself weeps over the doom of the lost. If Bell were right—that all will eventually be saved—I suspect God would not grieve so much at the necessity of judgment.

         (2) Bell is standing in a lonely spot. Apart from a few individuals throughout church history, he doesn’t have much company. The major branches of the Christian church—Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Protestant—have historically taught that some people will suffer torment in hell forever. Most defections from this consensus have been among people who think that the Bible is bunk, not among those who take it seriously. The smaller number, who believe the Bible yet deny the classic doctrine of hell, usually opt for annihilationism, the doctrine that the unsaved will simply cease to exist, either after death or after an appropriate period of punishment.

         Bell’s proposal implies that the vast majority of the great theologians of the church have completely misunderstood one of the major doctrines of the Bible for the past 2,000 years. That in itself ought to give us pause.

         (3) The Biblical evidence for eternal punishment in hell is clear. Those who worship the beast “will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; they have no rest day and night” (Revelation 14:10-11). When Jesus divides the “sheep” from the “goats” at the judgment, “These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).

         It does no good to note that the Greek word translated “eternal” may mean “age-long.” In the first place, that is a rare usage. In the second place, the meaning of a word depends on its context. Everyone agrees that “eternal life” means life that goes on forever. Therefore, “eternal punishment” must mean punishment that goes on forever.

         (4) While it is true that God takes “no pleasure in the death of the wicked” (Ezekiel 33:11) and that “he is not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9), we must not conclude that the doom of the lost represents a defeat for God’s love and power.

         God’s plan for the world encompasses all that takes place throughout history, including His decision to permit certain sinful actions that grieve Him, and His decision to punish such behavior. God’s plan is a victory for His love because by allowing human beings to rebel, He opens a way for Himself to express His infinite, saving love toward unworthy, but believing sinners.

         “God being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5). God’s love does not fail of its purpose. His love does indeed win.

Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus

In Misquoting Jesus, Bart Ehrman claims that there are thousands of errors in the New Testament and that this completely undermines the orthodox Christian faith. Here is a link to an Excellent Review. If that is too detailed, here are my brief responses to the issue.

1. We do not have the original manuscripts of the New Testament. We do have more abundant attestation for the text of the New Testament than we do for any other ancient book. No one complains that we don't know what Julius Caesar wrote or what Tacitus wrote even though we have far less certainty about the text of their writings than we do about the New Testament.

2.  God gave us an inerrant message, not an inerrant piece of paper. Suppose you were offered two choices: First, a perfectly accurate copy of someone's vague speculations about God; second, a perfectly adequate copy of an inerrant message. Which would you choose? I would take the second, and that is what we have. God did not choose to preserve perfectly accurate copies of the original manuscripts, nor did He preserve the originals. I suppose if we had them, we would worship them. People would go on pilgrimages to see them. Whoever had them would get rich. He gave us what is best for us.

3.  When we look at the various readings of the manuscripts, it becomes perfectly clear that none of the credible variants teaches any new doctrine. In other words, take any of the alternate readings and you will still be reading truth.

4. No doctrine of Scripture depends on one particular variant, so no doctrine is lost if one concludes that it is not taught in a certain verse.

5. I say these things, not because I have been told them, but because I read through the Greek New Testament every year. (Well, this year I am reading every other day in Greek and on alternate days in Latin.) I read an edition of the New Testament that lists various readings where there is any serious question of the correct reading. I often go through those alternate readings, so I can affirm what I have written from personal examination.

The Occult

In response to a friend whose friend is interested in the occult, I recently wrote:

There is a little bit on neo-paganism in chapter 5 of my book The Beauty of God for a Broken World. Regarding the occult more generally:

(1) The English word comes from a Latin root meaning "to cover up, hide, conceal." People are attracted to the occult because it promises to give hidden knowledge and to open up mysteries not available to the common run of humanity. Its appeal is similar to the appeal that conspiracy theories have for a certain kind of person.

(2) The Bible also speaks of mysteries, but they are a different kind of thing. The Bible's mysteries are things not previously known or discoverable by human reason, but now revealed for all to see.

(3) I compare them thus. The occult arts profess to reveal dark mysteries to the initiated. The Bible reveals bright mysteries in a public fashion. The difference between a bright mystery and a dark mystery is this. A dark mystery is like a cave. An apparently friendly enemy lures you into the cave with the promise of finding hidden treasure, but once you are inside and can't see anything, he pushes you down into a hundred-foot-deep hole. A bright mystery is like the sun. You can't look at it for very long, but by its light you can see and make sense of the world around you. Such are the mysteries of the Trinity, the incarnation and the atoning death of Christ.

When Not to Forgive

After last week’s sermon on Psalm 109 (Vengeance Belongs to the Lord), I received this question via e-mail. 

Hi Pastor,

In yesterday's sermon you said that we didn't have to forgive others unless they were repentant. I was wondering where in the Bible that comes from. I know of many verses that tell us to forgive, but don't know of any that say we shouldn't.

Here was my response.

Good question. I didn’t have time to fill out all the details in yesterday’s message.

Of course, we are always supposed to forgive in the sense of not holding a grudge, wishing someone ill, or trying to get even. We are to let it go so that we are not churning inside because of an offense. We trust God to take care of things. However, Luke 17:3-4 tells us to forgive our brother if he comes to us and says “I repent.” The implication is that until he repents it is premature to extend full forgiveness. God does not forgive the unrepentant, and we cannot be fully reconciled to people who refuse to repent. We can be kind to them. We can love and pray for them, but if we prematurely say to them, I forgive you, then they assume everything is OK without having to face up to their sin. This is ultimately harmful to them. The same thing is implied in the process for church discipline in Matthew 18:15-18. If the offender does not listen, he is not forgiven, but taken to task by the church.

These situations obviously envision a very serious offense, not the ordinary kinds of things that we ought in charity simply to overlook.

Pastor

Rest and Worship

(This is the tail end of a sermon on Psalm 95 that I preached on July 10, 2011. It is available in MP3 format on my website.) 

Psalm 95 connects two ideas that might not seem to fit together, worship and rest. How do they fit together? In the first place, only those who worship the Lord will enter into His rest. That is the primary thrust of Psalm 95. In the second place, our worship is not supposed to be a chore. It is part of our rest. The popular understanding of corporate, public worship has changed greatly in the past few decades. 

1. It used to be common to regard the sermon as the chief act of worship. Everything else was just the preliminaries that warmed people up spiritually and prepared them to listen to the sermon. So worship was something for us; worship was to instruct us and help us in our daily living. 

2. Then we went through a phase that regarded worship as a performance on our part for God. We were giving God pleasure by our worship. Worship was our work, our effort, our performance, and God was the audience. 

3. Now, I suspect that many people regard worship as a feeling produced in themselves, primarily by the music. For that reason, the musical portion of the service has increased dramatically in most churches because music stimulates feelings, and worship is all about feelings. First, we worship; then we listen to the sermon. The musical act of worship elevates our feelings. The sermon gives us practical advice. So the whole service is about us. That is the modern idea; even when people say it is not about us, it really is. 

Psalm 95 tells us something about worship that we need to hear. We only truly worship when we are resting in finished work of Christ and in the power of the Spirit of Christ. So worship is not a work we do for God; it is a rest. And resting in Christ is worship because when we rest in Him, we are magnifying His all-sufficiency. 

Worship is not just a feeling or simply a time of instruction. Worship is a kind of dialog or conversation in which we hear the word of God, and we respond to God with repentance, trust, praise and the offering of ourselves and our substance. If we are resting in Christ, the conversation is not a stressful, draining labor, but a renewing of the soul in the presence of Him who is our life.

4 Reasons Why Harold Camping Is Wrong

Harold Camping of Family Radio has predicted that Christ will return to rapture His church on May 21, 2011. His whole approach is wrong for the following reasons.

1)     Jesus said, “But concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32). Jesus did not know the day or the hour while He was on earth, but of course, now He does.

2) “The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple” (Psalm 19:7). The Bible is written in such a way that even simple people can understand how to be saved and how to live. It is not filled with coded messages that can only be unraveled with careful calculations, mystical insight, or computer programs.

3) It will always be possible to manipulate numbers in order to come up with a new date for the second coming. The false prophecy of Christ’s return in 1844 came to be called “The Great Disappointment.” In 1988 thousands of pastors received a booklet by Edgar Whisenant (which I still have). He predicted the return of Christ between September 11 and 13. The next year he said he’d been a year off, and I received another booklet. I guess he either ran out of dates or money because I didn’t get one in 1990. Harold Camping has also been wrong before (1994). Will he live long enough to hope that the third time will be the charm? If he doesn’t someone else sure will.

4) The apostle Paul wrote, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed” (Galatians 1:8). In Paul’s day, Judaizers were adding Jewish circumcision and other Old Testament ceremonial laws to the gospel. Harold Camping has added leaving the apostate churches (i.e. all the churches) to the gospel as a requirement for being saved. It is a false gospel, which falls under the curse of God.

The Church and Israel

What should the church’s attitude toward Israel be in this age?

This question (supplied by Mark & Julie Perry) needs to be addressed from historical, moral and theological perspectives.

Historical. Beginning in the nineteenth and continuing into the twentieth century, calls for a Jewish homeland emanated from three sources:

Ø  Influential Christians who believed that the Bible predicts a re-establishment of the Jewish state and a mass conversion of the Jews before the return of Christ.

Ø  Jewish Zionism, which arose somewhat later, motivated by both secular and religious concerns.

Ø  Political leaders from America and Europe who sympathized with the persecution of the Jews under Russian pogroms and the German Holocaust. These leaders recognized that Jewish refugees would end up somewhere, but they didn’t want them all showing up on European or American doorsteps.

Early calls for a Jewish homeland never materialized, but in 1947 a UN Resolution authorized the establishment of Jewish and Palestinian states. Israel declared its independent existence in 1948. The Arab states, refusing to recognize Israel’s right to exist, immediately attacked.

The war of Jewish independence resulted in the expulsion or flight of over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs. Except for Jordan, the neighboring Arab nations refused to grant citizenship and civil rights to the refugees. This refusal has resulted in a large number of stateless Arabs who are demanding the right to return to Israel and reclaim lands that they or their ancestors once inhabited. If this ever took place and they were granted citizenship, the Jewishness of the nation of Israel would at once be compromised.

In the years since its creation, modern Israel has been in an almost constant state of siege, fighting major and minor wars and suffering from ongoing terrorist attacks.

Moral. Unfortunately, many Christians (especially in the United States) have adopted an uncritically supportive stance toward Israel. God’s promise to Abraham (I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse, Genesis 12:3) has been cited to prove that our national blessing is dependent on always siding with Israel. However, God Himself has never adopted an uncritical support for His people. Just read the prophets. If we want to adopt a biblical attitude toward Israel’s actions, we ought to weigh them by the biblical standards of justice and mercy, which God commanded Israel to show even toward aliens (Deuteronomy 10:16-19).

On the other hand, Israel is often blamed unfairly by western media.

Ø  The issue of stateless Palestinians should not be laid at Israel’s feet alone. The United States and Europe have taken in millions of Muslim refugees, people whose religion and cultures were vastly different from the majority of their citizens. Why did the Muslim nations surrounding Israel refuse to grant citizenship to their own co-religionists?

Ø  Although Israel has at times exacerbated tensions by its harsh treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, in general its restraint under constant threats to its survival can hardly be matched by any other nation in history.

Ø  We ought not take the words of Israel’s enemies at face value. Too often their blatant lies have been reported without correction. When talking western reporters, they have condemned suicide bombers, but when speaking to their own people, they have praised and supported them.

Ø  Time and time again, Israel has been blamed for killing civilians, but Palestinians targeting Israel with their rockets have not been blamed for using those civilians as human shields.

These considerations taken together indicate that evaluating Israel’s actions is not easy. The situation is morally complex and often morally ambiguous. Christians, in my view, should not lend unqualified support to everything Israel does, but neither should we be unduly negative. We ought to stand up for Israel’s right to exist and to defend itself.

Theological.  Numerous Old Testament prophecies predict the regathering and conversion of Israel in the latter days. It is unreasonable to suggest that these prophecies have been completely fulfilled in ancient times, that they have been taken over by the church, or that they have been set aside by God because of Israel’s sins. Romans 11 clearly looks forward to a future for ethnic Israel.

The prophetic status of Israel today can best be described in the language of Ezekiel 37. Ezekiel saw a valley filled with scattered dry bones. As he watched, the bones came together and flesh grew upon them, but the bodies were still just corpses. Finally, the Spirit of God breathed into them “and they came to life and stood on their feet.” (One wonders on what else besides their feet they might have stood J.)

The Lord explained that the bones represented the whole house of Israel that was to be regathered and made to live again. For 2000 years Israel was dead, dry and scattered. Now the bones have begun to come together again, but still there is no spiritual life in the vast majority of the Jewish people. The state of Israel is openly hostile to Christian evangelism.

From a theological perspective, the church ought to be praying for God to outpour His Spirit on His ancient people, just as He promised He would (Zechariah 12:10). We should not fall prey to the notion that Jews can be saved through Judaism without conscious faith in Jesus Christ. They have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge (Romans 10:1-4). Therefore, the church needs to support the evangelism of Jewish people both inside and outside of Israel.

Finally, Scripture does not enable us to date the return of Christ by referring to the reestablishment of the State of Israel. Jesus’ prophecy that “this generation will not pass away until all these things take place” (Mark 13:30) probably refers to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, not to the end-time events that were foreshadowed by that destruction. Therefore, Christians should not become feverishly excited about the second coming of Christ. We should live faithfully and diligently every day as though He might come in the next blink of an eye, but we should plan for the future as though we might live to see our children’s children’s children.