Category Archives: Hell

Conditionalism: do the unsaved go to the grave and then cease to exist?

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In recent decades, annihilationalism (the doctrine that the finally impenitent cease to exist, rather than that they suffer eternal conscious torment) has continued to gain ground in evangelical circles.

Over the past century, those committed to (or, at least, sympathetic towards) this doctrine include: Harold E. Guillebaud, Basil Atkinson, J. Stafford Wright, Norman Anderson, John Stott, John Wenham, Philip Edgecumbe Hughes, E. Earle Ellis, John Stott, F.F. Bruce, Michael Green, I. Howard Marshall, Stephen Travis, Edward Fudge, R.…

Basil Atkinson on conditional immortality

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The redoubtable Cambridge scholar Basil Atkinson (1895-1971) may be said to have kick-started the revival of interest in annihilationalism/conditional immortality here in the UK.

John Wenham (in his autobiographical ‘Facing Hell’, p69) recalls an informal talk given by Atkinson in the mid-1930s.  The main ideas included the following:

1. The Bible nowhere teaches that man is immortal. This is a Greek idea.
2. God alone has immortality.
3. Immortality has been brought to light by the gospel.
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Eight myths about hell

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The topic of hell is difficult, yet necessary; painful, yet useful.

Sam Storms says that he cannot contemplate the horrors of hell without a deep agony of heart.  At the same time, he says, he feels a profound gratitude to the God who so lovingly and willingly reaches out and plucks the sinner from the jaws of hell.

With such thoughts in mind, Storms outlines eight common myths about hell:

Myth #1. There is widespread belief among non-Christians that Hell is a place where they will be united with their unbelieving friends and drink beer all the time in an endless party.…

2 Thess 1:9 – ‘Eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord’

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2 Thess 1:9 ‘They will undergo the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength,’

The apostle reassures his readers that God will reward afflicted believers with rest, and that he will punish the afflictors with eternal destruction on the day of judgement.

Two aspects of the present verse are relevant in debates about the duration and nature of eternal punishment.

1. Does ‘eternal destruction’ imply,

(a) everlasting torment, or

(b) annihilation after a period of suffering?…

Mark 9:43-48 – Hell – a rubbish dump?

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9:43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better for you to enter into life crippled than to have two hands and go into hell, to the unquenchable fire. 9:45 If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off! It is better to enter life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. 9:47 If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out! It is better to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 9:48 where their worm never dies and the fire is never quenched.…

Mt 25:46 – Must eternal punishment be as unending as eternal life?

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Mt 25:44 Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not give you whatever you needed?’ 25:45 Then he will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.’ 25:46 And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”…

Hell is the ballast

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Kevin DeYoung, Greg Gilbert write:

‘The doctrine of hell, however unpopular it may be and however much we may wish to soften its hard edges, is essential for faithful Christian witness. The belief that there is something worse than death is, to recall John Piper’s imagery, ballast for our ministry boats.

‘Hell is not the North Star. That is, divine wrath is not our guiding light. It does not set the direction for everything in the Christian faith like, say, the glory of God in the face of Christ.

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Abandoning hell

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A while ago, Dr Sam Wells wrote this article for the Church Times in which he explores the implications of a Christianity without belief in hell.

Wells begins with the words of Jesus in Jn 10:10 – “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”  This, he says, supplies an excellent mission statement for the church:

‘Jesus is our model of abundant life; his life, death and resurrection chart the transformation from the scarcity of sin and death to the ab­un­dance of healing and resur­rection; he longs to bring all humankind into reconciled and flourishing relationship with God, one another, themselves, and all creation.’
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Matthew 10:28 – ‘destroy’: everlasting punishment or annihilation?

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Mt 10:28 – “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Instead, fear the one who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”

The traditional view

The traditional interpretation goes back at least as far as Tertullian, who espoused a Platonic view of the immortality of the soul (see Fudge, The Fire That Consumes).

Blomberg asserts that

‘”kill,” like “destroy,” does not imply annihilation but eternal suffering, as the qualification “in hell” makes clear.’

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Revelation 14:11 – ‘No rest day or night’

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Rev 14:9 “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and takes the mark on his forehead or his hand, 14:10 that person will also drink of the wine of God’s anger that has been mixed undiluted in the cup of his wrath, and he will be tortured with fire and sulfur in front of the holy angels and in front of the Lamb. 14:11 And the smoke from their torture will go up forever and ever, and those who worship the beast and his image will have no rest day or night, along with anyone who receives the mark of his name.”…