Read Psalm 73:12–19
1. A VERY UNPOPULAR DOCTRINE
“Ladies and Gentlemen: The idea of a hell was born of revenge and brutality on the one side, and cowardice on the other…I have no respect for any human being who believes in it. I have no respect for any man who preaches it…I dislike this doctrine, I hate it, I despise it. I defy this doctrine…This doctrine of hell is infamous beyond all power to express.” Thus spoke Col. R. G. Ingersoll, “the great agnostic.”
Pastor Russell used to hammer a way at his favorite subject, “The Nightmare of Eternal Torture.” As he saw it, this terrible doctrine was being proclaimed by the ministers of the established churches in order to instill fear in the hearts of their people in order that they might remain manageable.
Let me add a statement by a Seventh Day Adventist: “To many people religion is merely a fire-escape. They have been scared into accepting it by hearing descriptions of a place which burns eternally, and into which they have been told they will be cast at death if they do not get religion and go to church.”
2. OBJECTIONS TO THE DOCTRINE OF HELL, TOGETHER WITH THE ANSWERS
First Objection
God is love. Therefore, the very existence of h ell is impossible. “A Creator that would torture his creatures eternally would be a fiend, and not a God of love” Rutherford, World Distress, p. 40).
Answer
Love does not exclude wrath, especially for those who stubbornly reject this love. It was Jesus Christ himself, the very embodiment of love, who spoke again and again about the punishment of hell.
Second Objection
God is righteousness. Accordingly, he would not visit temporal sin with everlasting punishment. That would not be fair, for the punishment must match the crime.
Answer
It is not necessarily the duration of the crime that fixes the duration of the punishment. Even now a crime committed in one minute may earn a life-sentence. What is decisive is the nature of the crime. An act of treason against one’s country is often punished with death. Hence, treason against the highest Majesty, willful rejection of the God of love, merits the extreme penalty.
Third Objection
God is righteousness (once more). Hence, he would not plunge into the deepest hell millions upon millions of innocent pagans who have never even heard the gospel.
Answer
Since a separate Outline will be devoted to this subject, it will be skipped here.
Fourth Objection
God is wisdom. Hence, he knows that extreme punishment would not accomplish anything useful.
Answer
What matters is that God remain God! Else all is lost for everybody. God cannot remain God unless his attributes—including his justice—be maintained. “Let justice be maintained though the world perish.”
Abrogation of this principle would mean the end for God and man both. Now, it was the inexorable maintenance of God’s justice that nailed Jesus to the cross as the Savior from sin. Moreover, God threatens with the most intense punishment those who reject such a loving and wonderful Savior. When, in conjunction with the promise of salvation for all who accept Christ, this threat is taken seriously, an immeasurable infIuence for good is exerted upon men. Moreover, God’s honor is maintained, and his justice is satisfied. And that, after all, is the thing that matters most.
Fifth Objection
God is omnipotence. Therefore he will not permit Satan to keep in his grasp those whom he (God) has created. A certain minister with universalistic convictions expressed it somewhat differentIy. He was preaching in a supposedly conservative church, and I was in the audience. His statement was this: “In the end everybody will be saved. I have hope even for the devil.”
Answer
God does not use his almighty power to drag men to heaven, in such a manner that their own responsibility would cease. A man who willfully rejects Christ is lost because of his own sin.
With respect to the proposition that in the end all men, demons, and even Satan himself will be saved, Scripture teaches the very opposite (Matthew 7:13, 14; 22:14; 25:10; 25:41; 25:46; Jude 6).
Sixth Objection
God is the Creator. He has so created us that we instinctively rebel against the idea of everlasting punishment. Hence, this idea cannot be true, for “the voice of the people is the voice of God.”
Answer
The rejection of the idea of everlasting punishment springs not from creation but from rebellion. And surely after the fall the slogan, “The voice of the people is the voice of God” is in need of considerable qualification. Man, prompted by his evil nature, prefers Barabbas to Christ.
Seventh Objection
God is the Revealer. In his Word he does not teach that the wicked go to hell when they die.
Answer
We are now getting to the very heart of the matter. The question is not whether Ingersoll or anyone else dislikes, hates, despises, and defies the doctrine of hell, but whether God in his Word has revealed it. This leads us now to the final sub-heading:
3. DOES THE BIBLE REALLY TEACH THAT THE WICKED GO TO HELL WHEN THEY DIE?
Here we must be careful. Very often when Scripture speaks about the eternal destiny of the wicked, it is discussing their final state, that is, their punishment as to both body and soul after the judgment day. A special Outline will be devoted later on to this subject. But here we are dealing only with the question whether the wicked go to hell when they die. Scripture’s teaching on this point, though not extensive, is clear enough. A few citations must suffice. According to Asaph, when the wicked die they are plunged into ruin. They become a desolation in a moment. They are swept away utterly by terrors (Psalm 73:12–19). When “the rich man” dies, he descends to a place of torments, from which there is no escape (Luke 16:23, 26). And when Judas committed suicide, he went “to his own place,” the place of perdition naturally (Acts 1:25).
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
A. Questions Answered in the Outline
1. What did Ingersoll say about the doctrine of hell?
2. What do the Russellites—Jehovah’s Witnesses—say about it?
3. And the Seventh Day Adventists?
4. What objections are advanced against the doctrine of hell, and how can these objections be answered?
5. Does the Bible teach that the wicked go to hell when they die?
B. Additional Questions
1. Is it possible to be on the wrong side with respect to the doctrine of hell, but on the right side with respect to the doctrine of redemption through Christ?
2. Russellites used to call themselves “International Bible Students.” But is the Bible really basic in their thinking? What is basic for them?
3. Are we in our own circles guilty of over-emphasizing the doctrine of everlasting punishment? Of under-emphasizing it?
4. Is the following correct and complete: According to the author of Psalm 73 the wicked prosper greatly in this life, while the righteous are afflicted. But in the end the tables are turned?—See especially verses 23 and 24.
5. Those who say that the doctrine of hell is inconsistent with God’s !ove, and that, acccordingly, there is no hell, face still another difficulty, not mentioned in the Outline. What is it?