Next week I will make some conclusions, but this week I want to make one final observation about the attempt to derive the evangelical hell doctrine (EHD) from the Bible. There are a few passages in the New Testament that use the words ‘death,’ ‘destruction,’ or ‘perish’ to describe the fate of unbelievers. For instance, 2 Thessalonians 1:9 says that “[t]hey will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord…” John 3:16 famously says that unbelievers will ‘perish,’ and Romans 6:23 says that “the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The one who holds the EHD has to believe that these are euphemisms; that is, Paul and John talk about mere death, but what they really mean is that these people will be alive forever while being consciously tortured.
These are two reasons that this is an irresponsible reading. First, if it is true that most people who have ever lived will suffer eternal, conscious torment, then such a truth would be the most important thing that we could ever discover. Therefore, we should expect the writers of the Bible to talk about this at every turn! But Paul never does, and John only does in Revelation when talking about worshippers of the beast and the devil. So are John and Paul holding out on us? Do they actually know that the fate of most people will be eternal conscious torment and yet do not tell us because it would be impolite? This seems absurd.
The second reason has to do with the Greek words being used. Those three passages I reference use three different Greek words for death, and when those words are used in other passages, they really just mean death – as in a complete end to life. For instance, the word translated ‘destruction’ in the 2 Thessalonians passage also shows up in I Corinthians 5:5, where Paul talks about “the destruction of the flesh,” which he contrasts with the “spirit [being] saved in the day of the Lord.” Or in John 3:16, the Greek word translated as ‘perish’ shows up in Matthew 5:29, when Jesus says that you should take out your right eye, because “it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell” (NKJV). In Jesus’ teaching in Matthew, then, perishing is the opposite of going to hell. So why would he use it in a radically different way in John without explaining himself? Did he just assume that we would get the message? In both of these passages, then, death is contrasted with ‘going to hell’; that is, perishing, or dying, or being destroyed is the opposite of living forever.
And so we have a handful or passages that mention hell or something like it. There are a few (mostly from Matthew, one from Luke) that mention hell as a place that you go for doing immoral works, and not for what you do or do not believe. Therefore, these passages cannot support the EHD. Then there are a few passages, all from Revelation, that describe literal, conscious torment. These, however, do not refer to regular unbelievers, but to the devil, worshippers of the beast, etc. Therefore, these passages cannot support the EHD. Then there are the passages I talked about today. They do (unlike the other two kinds of passages) talk about those who do not believe in the Gospel. However, they do not talk about hell as a destination for unbelievers; rather, they say that they will die, instead of having to endure some sort of everlasting torture. We can see that the Evangelical Hell Doctrine is unraveling fast. I want to make some concluding remarks next week.
