Connecting Point: Erasing Hell

You’ve observed no doubt that nature provides us with many parallels: a butterfly has two wings. In thinking of eternity, many fear death—that parallel with life. Joy and contentment contrast with loneliness and despair.

Throughout history, we have faced harmful teachings, and this reality is no different today. Popular writers and “preachers” have been

attempting to erase away the doctrine of hell. Those who reduce everything to nonbelief, we call them annihilationists, espouse the unredeemed will either cease to exist upon death or (after the final judgment) those in hell will have a short stay and then in the afterlife face extinguishing. Trending today also is a rather “kinder and gentler” Jesus, who it is claimed taught that there is only heaven. This is, to put it mildly, unbiblical.

Jesus gave us numerous warnings, including, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves,” (Matthew 7:15). We must be on guard against teachings which are contrary to time-tested Biblical doctrine. Rob Bell, a former pastor and popular speaker today, said, “The Bible is a product of human work, not divine fiat.” He also states, “I can’t find one place in the teaching of Jesus, or the Bible for that matter, where we are to identify ourselves first and foremost as sinners.” Rob proudly takes the badge as “heretic” and holds the view hell is not eternal and in the end, everyone, believers and unbelievers, somehow spend eternity with Jesus.

A favorite portion of the Bible in which the false teachers misinterpret is 2 Peter 3:5-7: “But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the Earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the Day of Judgment and destruction of ungodly men.”

For those desperate, who do not take Christ at his word, the word “destroyed” in the above text attempt to justify saying “annihilated.” But, in fact, the Greek language suggests that “destroyed” is closer to lost. After the flood of Noah’s generation, the world didn’t cease to exist, the world endured.

John chapter three speaks to the importance of salvation in Jesus as well as condemnation to hell. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son,” (John 3:16-18). There it is in a nutshell. I can only think that some people suffer Jesus’s clarity. We live in a time when many natural things are denied.

Be aware of those teachings which try to erase or ignore the fact that hell is real. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was for good reason; eternity is worthy. You and I are worthy through Christ. Let us endure together.