Thank you for watching! Bye! Well, hi there and welcome to Gospelicious Radio. My name is Pastor Timothy Howard and welcome to a very special edition of Gospelicious Radio, known as Tim's Theology Thursday. Tim's Theology Thursday is kind of a spin-off of our normal Gospelicious Radio broadcast, which happens every week, Lord willing. On Fridays broadcast around two o'clock Eastern Standard Time on both YouTube and the semi-exclusive home of Gospelicious Radio, Sermon Audio. And so both of these will be made available on both of those venues. It's been a little bit since we had a Tim's Theology Thursday. It's always a little tough for me to be able to do two programs in a week, so I try to squeeze them in as much as I can. That's the reason why there's only been 30 of them in Gospelicious Radio's lifespan. We did take that rather long hiatus from Gospelicious Radio for a while and then rebooted. And so now we try to do these spinoffs as much as we can. I know Adam has done his own spinoff before. The last ones he did was in December, Gospelicious Kids, and we're also working on Gospelicious Gaming. We gave you a little preview of that. fairly recently, but I did want to get back to Tim's Theology Thursday. I'm going to try my best to do these every so often or as needed. I would encourage you that if you have questions that you'd like me to answer for you, If you'd like my thoughts on them, you can email us at gospeliciousradio at gmail.com, and we will get to those. We'll try our best to either answer them here on Tim's Theology Thursday, or we will answer them on our regular Gospelicious program, and so we'll encourage you in that. Recently, I have been asked quite a few questions about a kind of a controversial topic. I mean, it's part of our understanding as Christians and something that we have to grapple with if we're going to evangelize properly. And that is our understanding of what exactly hell is. Okay? And I've had several questions lately, just not just necessarily with Gospelicious, but as you all know, I am a pastor of Eastford Baptist Church. I also am a professor online professor and faculty member for Davis College. I teach theology there, and so I interact with a lot of people, students and just regular lay people alike who have questions every so often. And so I thought that this would be a proper venue for us to address that. What is a proper view, a biblical view, of hell? And what I'm going to do is I'm going to actually switch over because I'm kind of at a distance over here. I'm actually in Gospelicious. HQ here. We're in kind of the Tim's Theology Thursday side of things. But since it's just me today, I'm gonna bring us in a little closer. Hopefully this works. Okay, yeah, you can see me right here. I got my Kramer giddy-up. For those of you who knew me in Bible college, you know about that, but you know where that comes from. But basically there's three three viewpoints, three at least popularized viewpoints, common viewpoints on the concept of hell. And first is what we call eternal conscious torment, okay, and that is that hell is a place of eternal punishment, but it is conscience for those who die without Christ, for the wicked, for sinners. It's what all sinners deserve. It is eternal sin against an eternally holy God deserves eternal conscious punishment. And you then have, and we're going to talk about all three of these very briefly today. Again, Tim's Theology Thursday is not meant to be a full-fledged hour-long, hour-and-a-half-long podcast. This is supposed to be short, just to be able to kind of hit on the bullet points. So you have eternal conscious torment. You also have what is known as annihilationalism, okay? Annihilationism, I said that wrong. And that is where the wicked are punished but then cease to exist. They are annihilated, okay? It's not eternal conscious torment, but it is final death, that you just are gone. that your whole being is just as if it was never remembered anymore, as if it never existed. And then finally you have the opposite of that, known as universalism, which is ultimately that all people will be saved, even those who are in hell after judgment and are purified ultimately. And I wanna talk about all three of those today, okay, because they are, all three are debated, all three of those things are things that come up from time to time in your discussions with people. You might end up getting into a discussion with a family member or a friend or a lost person just in regard to the nature of hell and what exactly it is. And so you need to be biblically prepared for that. I'm just going to say up front that I take what I believe is the most biblical viewpoint is eternal conscious torment. I believe that's what the scripture teaches about hell. And I have reasons for that. But I will come back to them. But I do want to begin with annihilationism. Again, that is where the wicked are punished but then cease to exist. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you some biblical arguments for these, and then I'm going to give a biblical argument ultimately for eternal conscious torment at the end to show you why I believe the scriptures teach that particular viewpoint on this. And so annihilationism, I keep saying it wrong, The biblical argumentations for that would be some common ones are beginning with The book of Romans chapter 6 23 we know this one that the wages of sin is death But that but that is seen as literal death not an ongoing Life and torment again death being a ceasing of existing so anytime the term death in a spiritual sense is used it's it's it is referring to that's ceasing to exist. Similar to when our loved ones die, their conscience is completely gone. They are gone. They're not with us anymore. And so they would see this as, that this kind of death is being very similar, but in a spiritual sense, that they're just gone. Matthew 10, 28, Jesus saying, fear him who can destroy, and that's the key term, both soul and body in hell. And again, this is interpreted as complete destruction of the person that Jesus was talking about, just a complete destroying of the individual to the point where there's nothing left. Okay, because when we think about destroying, the term destroy, they're completely gone. You also have, again, another very familiar verse, John 3, 16, where it says, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish. Once again, the term death is synonymous with that, ceasing to exist. And that's contrasted with everlasting life, obviously. So that's where the argument comes from. You also have second Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 9 where it says they will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction Paul uses that term depending upon your translation That again that that the destruction is not ongoing Not ongoing torment, but a final end of the individual and then finally you have The imagery from Malachi chapter 4 verses 1 to 3 where the wicked will be in ashes under your feet, okay? So once again, every one of those needs to be seen within their context and also seen in the wider context of the teaching, I believe. And I think that Just a few different things just in terms of and I want to give these each a relatively fair shake so Written down some theological strengths of these Emphasizes God's mercy and justice without eternal cruelty. Okay, and again You know, I mean it depends on Your viewpoint of cruelty. Okay, that God is It's certainly not a cruel God. I would never define him as that However, I and we'll give come back to this. I don't believe that eternal conscious torment is necessarily cruel. I think it's What is deserved? And we'll talk about that more in a second that it also avoids concepts of everlasting punishment for finite sins Okay, depending upon your viewpoint of sin. You see how all of this kind of comes together here and and also appeals to emotion and philosophical concern about divine fairness, okay? And really, that term emotional really is at the heart of this annihilationist viewpoint. And again, for anybody who is an annihilationist, I understand that I'm only just hitting the bullet points here, like I said, but I really do believe that it's emotion. I think it comes down to we don't like the idea of people burning for eternity. None of us do. Not even those of us who believe in an eternal conscious torment. We don't like the idea that God would send someone somewhere to be tormented forever. That doesn't seem like there is that that is necessarily in his character and nature. However, once again, and we'll come back to this in just a moment, God is not just a God of love. God is not just a God of good ideas and Pleasant things pleasant thoughts. No, God is also a just God and He needs to punish sin. And so we need to and it really comes back to our understanding of sin and And I think that you see this You know, I think that it comes from a really good heart, a heart of just maybe trying to defend the character and nature of God, that God can't be that cruel, so it would be better that they just poof, they vanish. It would be better for them just to cease from existence. That would be much better than the idea of God actually putting someone somewhere where they consciously have to be tormented for all eternity. And so that's annihilationalism. Annihilationism, I said it wrong like five times, please forgive me. But then you also have universalism, okay? Once again, that is ultimately that all people will be saved, even those in hell. And that's an interesting argument. So some biblical arguments for this would be 1 Timothy 2, 4. God desires all people to be saved, okay? And once again, we have to view that within its context, okay? These verses all are in their context, but once again, these are proof texts that are common in the universalist viewpoint. So that God's desire is that all people will be saved, and so the idea is that God will ultimately save everyone. You also have first Corinthians chapter 15 verse 22 for as in Adam all die so in Christ shall all be made alive and that's interpreted once again is a universal salvation that the all refers to everyone the all who Died in Adam, which is every one of us is equivalent to the all who will be made alive once again Within the context that's I would argue that that's a very poor argument because all doesn't mean all all the time All right and you see that I think right in that verse and because clearly we have examples of People in hell we have we have several examples. We'll talk about those in a second and so Not everyone is going to be made alive. They're not not everyone is going to go to heaven We also have Colossians 1 20 that says through him to reconcile to himself all things and so they see that as kind of a full-fledged Universal cosmic kind of reconciliation of creation itself, which we do believe in we do we do believe that that creation will be eventually Made right once again. It will be once again perfect as it was in the Garden of Eden and But the all things there, once again, it depends upon how you define that. And once again, that's not what Paul's point was in that particular instance in Colossians. You have to look at all of the surrounding verses in order to be able to get to the true meeting. You also have Philippians chapter 2 verse 10 and 11 where it says, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. And so, you know, every knee. But again, in that instance, it's not talking necessarily about eternal life. Not everybody is going to confess. You might confess that Jesus is Lord. You're going to do that one way or the other. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to do so in heaven. But you will do so for all eternity, okay, one way or the other. You also have Romans chapter 5 verse 18 that says so one act of righteousness leads to justification in life for all men Okay, once again That kind of universal language that Paul uses once again, I believe that this is rooted in more of a emotional argument one that I just refuses to see anything any kind of negative or God enacting any kind of consequence whatsoever due to sin, and a complete focus upon, and I believe, manipulation of the love of God, okay? Certainly God has desires. He has desires that... I don't think that He... and when we use the term desire, we have to be careful how we define that, too. I don't think that He takes pleasure The death of the wicked God's Word says that I don't think that he takes pleasure in people going to hell. All right but in here's the truth of the matter is that we all do things that we don't take pleasure in, but we know that are necessary. And I believe that that's the case with hell and the necessity of hell, that a holy God who must be just and the justifier of the ungodly must punish sin. And he did so in one of two ways. He either did so by having your sins paid for on the cross of Calvary by the blood of Jesus Christ, or He did so by, as I'm going to defend, eternal conscious punishment in a place called hell for all eternity. He makes a way for you to be saved from that, and once again, it's through Jesus, through faith alone in Him alone, by His grace. But you need to turn to Him. You need to put your faith in Him. You need to believe that good news, if that atonement, if that salvation is going to be applied to you, which gets into the issue of the gospel and the call to share the gospel with people. And I really think that it's a contradiction of that commission that Jesus Christ has given to us with this universalist viewpoint. Because if all men are going to be saved if everyone is going to go to heaven anyways Why bother sharing Jesus Christ with others and so you end up? Redefining what the gospel is and you start redefining what sin is and it's the same thing with with annihilation Annihilation ism because really if they're just gonna poof be gone There's really no teeth to the the punishment it really the punishment doesn't fit the crime unfortunately And so I really believe that's where the argument breaks down. And so that brings us to biblical proves of where I want to land here with the last few minutes, eternal conscious torment. Some biblical arguments for the fact that hell is a place of eternal conscious punishment for those who die without Christ, the wicked, would be Jesus' words in Matthew 25, 46. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life, okay? And so, the Greek term there for eternal is the same one that's used in both, to describe both eternal punishment and eternal life. and that implies equal duration. So just as eternal life is eternal, so too is eternal punishment, that it's going to go on forever and ever and ever. We also have Revelation chapter 14 verse 11, speaking of that end times and what's going to happen to those who die without Christ. It says, the smoke of their torment Goes up forever and ever And they have no rest day or night. So that's a very clear picture of ongoing Conscious torment conscious punishment for sin very clear. All right you also have um the uh revelation 20 verse 10 they will be tormented day and night forever and ever and this of course is talking about the devil the beast The false prophet that when they're thrown into the lake of fire and all of hell, okay is thrown into the lake of fire Okay, because Helen it like fire two separate things, but they are eternal punishment for sin You also have mark 9 43 to 48 Jesus speaks of hell Where the worm and does not die and the fire is not quenched so again the idea of eternal eternal punishment And then Daniel, going back to the Old Testament, even supports this. Daniel chapter 12 verse 2 states, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt. And so you see those parallels between both everlasting life and everlasting death. I'm going to move us back to the main cam over here. And so I'll just say this is that I think that the strongest argument here is for eternal conscious punishment. And why is that? Well, a couple different things is that Jesus very, very clearly taught this. He very clearly taught, and he taught it frequently. As a matter of fact, if you do a full-fledged study on hell, Jesus spoke more than anyone else in the entirety of Scripture on the subject of eternal punishment, on the subject of hell. He warned about hell more than anybody else in the Bible, and he used that kind of vivid language that we think of when we think of hell, fire and brimstone and gnashing of teeth. He wanted you to understand that there is a torment that there that this is not something to yawn at that This isn't just something that's you know Oh poof, you're gonna be gone and you're not gonna feel it or you know Yeah, you'll be there for a little bit and then you know what God is gracious and I'll just let you go to heaven Anyway, no, this is eternal punishment And so Jesus was very clear, and that's the reason why right there at the end of his time here on earth, before he was ascended, he gave the Great Commission to go into all the world and share the gospel, to go into the world and make disciples. Why is that? So that men and women can be saved from this eternal conscious torment, this terrible place that we call hell. There's also, as I pointed out here, the language of eternity is, you see it, I mean, we pointed this out before, that it's kind of symmetrical, okay? That eternal life is forever, and so is eternal punishment. We see that in Matthew 25, 46. And the once again that term is used to describe both eternal so that gets rid of the annihilation Argument and it also gets rid of the universal argument because there is a place where certain individuals will go In order to pay for their sins for eternity, okay And I think this is probably the greatest argument for it is that the punishment needs to fit the crime. All right, and I would argue that universalism, especially, but annihilationism as well, in order to get to that point, they need to diminish sin. They need to diminish the effects of sin. They need to diminish what sin is. And sin is an eternal offense against a holy God. All right. We have offended a holy God. And because we've offended a holy God, this, and once again, I think that this goes even further than just our poor viewpoint on sin, but also our viewpoint on God, because it's like, yeah, we've offended God, but okay. God is not me. God is not you. God is not a human being. All right. God is his own category. All right. There is nothing else to compare or describe who God is. OK. And his holiness that set apart nature his goodness his sanctity all of these things his perfection. They cannot be described. And. So the way that we understand it, at least to a certain extent, is in comparison to us who are not holy. That we cannot ever maintain that level of perfection in comparison to him. And as a matter of fact, because we can't do that, it offends him. And it comes out in the way that we treat one another. It comes out in sin. I mean, just to call it what it is, it's sin. And why is it sin? Well, because it offends God. And yeah, it's not good for us. It's not good for His creation. It's not good for anything. But ultimately it offends a holy God. And if this sin against an infinitely holy God is seen at the greatest possible place that it should be, then it deserves an infinite consequence. so the ongoing torment of hell it reflects the seriousness of our sin and it reflects the the holiness of Who God really is God is not just a good long-bearded grandpa in the sky Who's just gonna love you as you are no matter what and now it's okay. You can go to heaven. No He needed He needs to punish sin and he did so in one of two ways as I said before he did so through the payment of his son Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary making a way of salvation to anyone who would run to him and put their faith in him and trust him alone or or people will have to pay for that sin on their own, and eternal life or eternal death, okay? And really, that's what it is. I think that annihilationism and universalism downplay God. I think it downplays sin, and I also think that it downplays the justice of God. They attempt to soften the doctrine. They often will compromise the holiness of God and the justice of God, okay? God's wrath is, you know, they treat it as God's wrath throughout time is just kind of like a momentary thing that, you know, yeah, he was angry for a little bit, but now he got over it. No. He took sin very seriously to the point where he sent his son Jesus on the cross of Calvary to pay for that sin. And he takes it equally seriously when we don't accept him as Savior. And so the punishment needs to fit the crime. And just giving you just a tad bit, because I am reaching the end of my time here. I try not to go more than a half hour. Just overarchingly historically, Okay, you're gonna have a very hard time finding a common historical consensus, a large historical consensus on these ideas of universalism and annihilationism. It has not been the viewpoint of the church, the biblical church, I should say, throughout most of church history. And it's really kind of more of a modern phenomena. And that's where we have to be very careful about modern doctrines and modern ideas and modern thoughts. There's nothing new under the sun, as Solomon said, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, It you know anything that that if you come to a doctor if somebody is teaching something that completely contradicts the way that Number one the Bible teaches but number two the way that Christians have believed for 2,000 years Okay, going back to the time of the New Testament, then I'm sorry. I'm gonna have a very very hard time Believing what you have to say When you can go back to people like Augustine and Aquinas and Calvin, and you can go back to the creeds and confessions, you can read the Apostles' Creed, you can read the Nicene Creed, you can go even to more modern, the Westminster Confession, you can go to the 1689 London Baptist Confession, all of these teach eternal conscious torment in a place called hell. Okay, every one of them throughout history. And so beware of modern doctrine. But I will say this just as we close, that this, because eternal conscious torment the biblical viewpoint of hell How does that what should that prompt in us? Well, it should prompt us to action folks. We have to get out and share Jesus with people we have to get over our Whatever it is. That is that is preventing us from sharing Christ and see the the terrible eternal predicament that they are in that if they die without Jesus Christ, they will end up in hell for all eternity and suffering the consequences of that sin and We have the answer to it. We have we have the message that can save their soul and so if we believed that And this is where it's so important that we believe in this eternal conscious torment. Because if we believed it, there would be a sense of urgency in our lives to share Jesus with others. We wouldn't let a day go by without sharing Jesus with other people. If we really believed this, if we really believed in the severity of hell. And so, once again, this is not just a theological concept. This has very, very real consequences, eternal consequences. And really, it should have an everyday effect on our hearts and lives and what we actually do. And so, my thing is this, just in way of conclusion, get out and share the gospel this week. Share Jesus Christ with somebody. Tell them that listen You know there is an afterlife there is a heaven in hell and that without Jesus Christ without running to him and putting your faith in him and trusting him only for your salvation and for the forgiveness of your sins you will die and You will wake up in the fires of hell never to return ever again and so Again, we don't want to go down that route and we have to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves, of course and we have to be Wise in the way that we go about the way that we share Jesus with others we can have another Gospelicious radio session or Tim's theology Thursday on how to evangelize. Maybe I'll do that next time but Regardless of how you do it, okay Do it share Jesus share Jesus Adam and I always say spread the gospelicious word people and I'll say people do it. I know we always say people kind of silly People share the gospel Do it this week This has been Tim's theology Thursday number three zero. Thank you all so much for joining me here I will encourage you to check out our regular gospelicious radio podcast that usually takes place a lot more often than Tim's Theology Thursday, but takes place on Fridays at 2 p.m. That's when we go live and that can be found on both YouTube and the semi-exclusive home of Gospelicious Radio that is Sermon Audio and you can find both the video version as well as the audio version there, but Once again, my name is Pastor Timothy Howard. If you have any questions, email us at gospeliciousradio at gmail.com. And who knows, maybe I'll answer those questions here on Timothyology Thursday. Adam and I might answer them together on Gospelicious Radio. But once again, it is a blessing and a privilege to be with you. And so happy painting. God bless, my friends, and I will see you in the next one. Bye for now. you