Categories
Bible Study Theology

1 Peter 3:18-19; 4:5-6 Is Hell really eternal unending punishment?

I don’t plan on answering that question definitively in this post, but I chose it as the post title because it is something that many sincere Christians ask, and I hope that those who are asking it will read this post and be helped along in their search of answers.

I clearly remember a time in my life when eternal conscious torment in hell was a doctrine that I was finding harder and harder to accept.  I believe that many people today are in that place and I hope that by sharing just a little bit here of what God taught me, they may be spared from the grievous error into which I very nearly fell.

First of all, I want to challenge anyone who is questioning the historic orthodox doctrine of eternal conscious torment in hell to ask himself…


“Why am I questioning the reality of eternal punishment?”


If you are honest, I think you would have to admit, as I had to, that the starting point of my thinking was not what God has revealed to us in his inspired Word about his justice, hell and eternal punishment, but rather it was my own philosophical stumbling blocks.  In other words, it is very hard for us to come to grips with eternal punishment, so we go to the Scriptures trying to find a reason why this can’t be true.  Perhaps we were taught about hell in our childhood without ever understanding the biblical basis for the doctrine.  So as adults we begin to question what we were taught because it just doesn’t seem fair that some sinners would be saved and others would be lost.  It doesn’t seem to accord with our concept of love that God would allow a person to suffer an infinite, eternal punishment.

Are you willing to make what God has revealed your starting point, rather than starting with your questions?  Are you willing to study what God has revealed with an open mind?  When we start with our questions, we are putting God on trial and trying to fit his character and being into our human understanding rather than starting with what is greater and infinite and letting it shape our limited, finite understanding.

Try to come with grips with the large portions of Scripture where God’s pure and holy hatred of sin is undiluted.  This is the value of reading the Old Testament prophets.  They break us and show us our wickedness so that we are then in a position to read a chapter like Isaiah 53 and begin to grasp the magnitude of what Jesus did for us when we understand that the wrath in the cup that Jeremiah was told to take to the nations (Jer. 25:15) was drunk for us by God the Son himself (Luke 22:42).  To say that Jesus did not suffer God’s wrath for us is a convenient route to take philosophically, but it is not what God reveals to us in his Word (see my review of The Shack for some of the biblical teaching on God’s just and holy judgment of sin).

God also showed me my pride in questioning his revelation concerning eternal punishment in hell.  Not only was I stubbornly refusing to come to grips with what he was saying to me in his word, I was also claiming that it was unjust for him to condemn me to hell for my sins.

Of course, my concern wasn’t for myself, so I thought.  I was concerned for others who hadn’t yet come to Christ.  What about them?  How could God send them to hell and not me?  Doesn’t that sound noble?  Doesn’t it sound merciful and loving to question how God could condemn poor, lost sinners to eternal punishment.

But what I was missing was the important scriptural doctrine of the unity of the human race.  The problem is not my sin over against your sin.  The problem is our sin.  In Adam, we are all sinners together.  We bear our guilt together as well as individually (Romans 5:12-21).

So when I say, “God, how can you justly punish that poor sinner with eternal punishment”, I am really saying, “God, how can you justly punish me with eternal punishment.” If I am not willing to accept that I deserve eternal punishment then how can I accept what Jesus did for me at the cross?  Do I think that he is saving me because there is something in me that is worth saving?  If so, then I am clinging to my own filthy rags of self-righteousness rather than casting my self wholly on him.  And if I deserve eternal punishment, then so does every other sinner.  That is why I should pray for those who have not believed with humility, recognizing that it is our sin of unbelief and rebellion that needs to be covered with Jesus’ blood.

This is already a huge post, but I want to treat at least one Bible passage that is sometimes appealed to as an argument that hell is not eternal punishment.  Actually, there are many other more important passages to deal with, but this one happened to be the one that motivated me to write this post in the first place, so I’ll just deal with it.

1 Peter 3:18-19

18 For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit, 19 in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison, 20 because they formerly did not obey, when God’s patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water.

Many people believe that these verses teach that those who have died without accepting Jesus will eventually be released from hell as they are “brought to their senses” and come to trust in Christ.  Hell, in this way of thinking, is like the “hell” that the prodigal son went through and that brought him to his senses and caused him to come back to Christ (this is only one of several possible interpretations that have been offered). But is Peter really saying here that Jesus, after his resurrection, went and proclaimed the gospel to people from Noah’s day who had died and were in a spiritual prison awaiting judgment day?

1 Peter 4:5-6 seems to refer to the same thing…

5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

Is this verse also teaching that the good news of salvation in Jesus is preached to people after they have died?

I don’t believe it is, and here is why…

In the context of these verses, Peter is talking about suffering as believers when we take a stand for Jesus and proclaim his gospel (3:13-17).  Immediately before the verses in question, he says, (v. 17) “For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than for doing evil.” Verse 17 is crucial to understand.  If it is better to suffer for doing good, than for doing evil, then there is a suffering for evil that is possible to fall into.  Is Peter here only referring to suffering in this world?  We shall see…

To continue his argument, in v. 18, Peter reminds his readers that Jesus suffered for their sin on the cross so that they would not have to suffer God’s judgment “for doing evil” (end of v. 17).  Jumping ahead to v. 21, Peter reminds them that through their water baptism, which was an outward demonstration of their faith in what Jesus did for them in his death and resurrection, they were saved from having to suffer “for doing evil” (remember v. 17 again).

Now let’s look at the verses in between v. 18 and v. 21.  Here Peter uses the example of the sinners who were judged in Noah’s day to draw a contrast between those who do not have to suffer for doing evil (because they were united with Christ through faith demonstrated in water baptism), and those who do have to suffer for doing evil (because they did not believe).  Those who survived the flood of water represent those who are saved through the water of baptism.  But the water that saved some was also judgment for others who did not believe.

The sinners of Noah’s day had opportunity to repent of their sins and find salvation in Noah’s ark.  But how did they have this opportunity?  Most people assume that the Genesis account says that Noah, during the entire time he was building the ark, was also warning people of the coming flood, but if you look again in Genesis, it never says that Noah preached.  The only references to Noah preaching are in the New Testament.  One is in 2 Peter 2:5, where Noah is called a “herald of righteousness.” The other is right here in 1 Peter 3.  Notice that it says that God was “patiently waiting” in the days of Noah.  Waiting for what?  Peter himself answers that question in his second book (2 Peter 3:5-9).  He says that just as God patiently waited for people to repent in Noah’s day, he is also patiently waiting for them to repent now, before he again comes to bring judgement on the earth.

So what does all of this have to do with Jesus preaching to the spirits in prison?  The answer is that Peter is referring to the fact that Jesus, in the Spirit, was patiently preaching through Noah, in Noah’s day, to the people that were in danger of coming under the judgment of the flood.

Let’s say that my brother gives me a Macbook Pro for my 30th birthday because I am moving to Indonesia to live.  Ten years later, it can be said of my brother, “yeah, he gave a Macbook Pro to his brother in Indonesia.”  It doesn’t mean that I was in Indonesia when he gave it to me, but that in contrast to the brother that lives in Ecuador, it was the brother who now lives in Indonesia that got the new laptop.

So we should understand Peter’s words in v. 19 this way: “…in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits who are (now) in prison.” The spirits of those people who were warned by Jesus, who in the Spirit used Noah as an instrument to warn them, are now in prison.  They are facing eternal judgment because they did not respond in faith to what the Spirit of Jesus was revealing to them by offering them an ark of salvation to get into before the judgment of the flood fell.

Summarizing, these verses in 1 Peter 3 do not teach that people can have the good news preached to them after they die and before the judgment, rather they teach that Jesus suffered for evil, and that if we will put our faith in him, we will not have to suffer for our evil deeds, even though we may have to suffer for doing good.

As Peter continues on talking about Christian suffering, we come to the second reference that seems to imply that the gospel will be preached to people after they die…

1 Peter 4:5-6

5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does.

Chapter 4 begins with this reasoning:  If Jesus suffered the death penalty for the evil deeds that we were guilty of, then we no longer have to live enslaved to evil human passions.  He doesn’t state it explicitly, but I think his implicit reason for this is that we are united with Christ in his death so that we, with Christ, died to our sins.

He goes on to say that those who are not in Christ do live enslaved to evil human passions, and that they will have to, “give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead” (v. 5).  In other words, even though those who are not believers think it is pointless, even ridiculous that we do not join them in doing “what feels right,” they will eventually discover that they are going to have to account for their actions.

Then Peter says, “This is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead…” Here again, just as he did in chapter 3, Peter is not talking about preaching that occurs after the person has died, but rather preaching that brought people to repentance before they died (see my previous illustration of the Macbook Pro).  These people who “are (now) dead,” had the gospel preached to them SO THAT (this is why…) they would be able to stand in the coming judgment.

Even though these believers seemed to come under the judgment of physical death (this is the meaning of, “… though judged in the flesh the way people are” )  they will live spiritually eternally because Jesus suffered their penalty in their place (“…they might live in the spirit the way God does.”)

So again, the teaching here is not that there will be opportunity for people to be saved after death, but rather that there is a judgment that is coming and for those who have sought refuge in Christ, there is hope that the suffering we experience now is not the portent of eternal judgment.

But for those who have not sought refuge in Christ, the suffering of believers is a sign to them that if they do not repent, they will be judged.  This is why Peter closes chapter 4 with these words:

“15 But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler. 16 Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And…

“If the righteous is scarcely saved,

what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”

To conclude my post, I want to lovingly and humbly plead with anyone who may be contemplating the possibility that God will not judge sinners eternally with an infinite punishment.  Seek God in his word.  Spend more time there than alone with your human doubts.  Don’t be content to latch on to a few scriptures that may seem to teach what you want to hear, but ask God to show himself to you, in all of his infinite justice and love that was displayed at the cross of Jesus.  It is my prayerful confidence that he will.


Categories
Books Theology

90 Minutes in Heaven

Sometimes I wonder how many times this book sells because people assume it was written by JOHN Piper.  If you aren’t familiar with either Don or John, let me introduce them to you.  Don Piper is a pastor who has written a book chronicling his experiences surrounding a terrible automobile accident.  He believes that he died and spent 90 minutes in heaven before God miraculously brought him back to life.

John Piper, on the other hand, also a preacher, has written dozens of books in which he presents the glorious gospel of the Savior, Jesus Christ, who died on a cross and suffered the condemnation and wrath of God that sinful humanity deserves so that those who are united with him through faith can experience reconciliation with God and the full enjoyment of God’s glory for all eternity in heaven.

In this post, I want to take a brief look at DON Piper’s book in the light of Scripture…

My 14 year old son read D.P.’s book and liked it initially, but the more we talked about it together, the more we came to the conclusion that there was something wrong.  Any experience that a believer has needs to be held up to the Word of God and evaluated in its light.  When we did this to D.P.’s experience we found the following problems.

1.  D.P.’s “experience of heaven” didn’t include Jesus

Surely Jesus is the “principal attraction” of heaven and would be prominent in any genuine experience.  Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:8 that “we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” and in Philippians 1:23, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.” When we die, we will immediately be with Jesus. We will not be in a tunnel and we will not be in heaven “waiting” to see him. I think that based on these scriptures it is safe to assume that Jesus will be the very first person or thing that we see when we die. D.P.’s experience just doesn’t seem to fit with these verses. Does that mean that he is a bad person or intentionally trying to deceive people? Absolutely not, but he needs to look at his experience and seek to understand it in light of Scripture.

It also strikes me that a friend of mine who follows another major world religion has had four surgeries and describes very similar experiences to what many Christians claim to have experienced through near death experiences–being in a long mirrored tunnel with very bright light at the other end. In his case, it strikes me as a demonic deception that he is “OK with God” spiritually and ready to die, and not a genuine experience of whatever lies beyond the grave for him.

2.  Scripture is clear that man dies only once.

Nowhere in Scripture is there any account of someone going “halfway.” There are, however, plenty of examples of people who actually died physically and were raised back to life, both before and after Christ. God certainly raises the dead and he may very well have raised Don Piper from the dead! But I find it interesting that in every single one of these recorded biblical resurrections absolutely nothing is ever said about what these individuals experienced.

Scripture also says that it is “appointed for man to die once, and then comes the judgment.” (Hebrews 9:27). In my thinking, the only way to understand Heb. 9:27 in light of the many recorded resurrections is that when those individuals died, even though they died physically, their souls did not go to heaven. I certainly don’t believe in the erroneous doctrine of “soul sleep”, but I think that this is a reasonable understanding of Heb. 9:27. When God determines to raise someone from the dead, he knows that it is not their time to die, and so he doesn’t take their soul to heaven, but rather restores physical life to their body. I understand that this is just an inference on my part, but I think it is a reasonable one.

3.  Scripture is clear that “back from the dead” experiences will not bring people to faith.

Isn’t it interesting that none of the resurrected individuals recorded in Scripture shared their experience with others? Perhaps it is because there was nothing to share! And even if there was some sort of experience to share, Jesus made it clear in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 that such experiences are not what God has sovereignly determined to use in the conversion of sinners. Luke 16:31 “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” Rather, “It pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.” (1 Corinthians 1:21)

What is lacking in D.P.’s book is the clear, straightforward presentation of the simple biblical gospel, (the one the other Piper preaches). Testimonies are great, but they should point to our wonderful Savior and what he did for us when he took our punishment upon himself so that we might be reconciled to the Father.

If you want to read my son’s review of the book, you can find it here.

Categories
Ministry Sermons

The Ministry of the Isaiah Watchman

Yesterday, I talked about the difference between the Ezekiel watchman who has a ministry of proclamation, and the Isaiah watchman who has a ministry of prayer.  The Ezekiel watchman is probably the better known of the two, but consider what Isaiah 62:6-7 tells us about the important ministry of the Isaiah watchman.  In this post, I’ll point out three important aspects of the Isaiah watchman’s ministry:

6 On your walls, O Jerusalem,
I have set watchmen;
all the day and all the night
they shall never be silent.
You who put the Lord in remembrance,
take no rest,
7 and give him no rest
until he establishes Jerusalem
and makes it a praise in the earth.

1.  The watchman reminds God of his eternal purpose.

“You who put the Lord in remembrance, take no rest, and give HIM no rest UNTIL he establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth.”

God is saying this:  “I have chosen watchmen who are going to tirelessly ask me to do what I have already determined and promised that I am going to do!  If you read the rest of Isaiah 62, you will hear God declaring all of the wonderful things that he is going to do for Jerusalem.  And then God says, “these watchmen are going to REMIND me of all these promises I have made.”  Think about what this verse implies about prayer. 

Prayer is putting God in remembrance!  Prayer is NOT convincing God to do something that he does not want to do,  or that up until the time you asked, he hadn’t considered doing.  Prayer is not giving God advice about what he should do.  Prayer is not adding some ethereal power of “faith” to God’s power to accomplish something.  

Prayer is an assignment, given to us by God, to faithfully remind him of what he has already revealed to us that He is going to do.  

Now do you think we REMIND God of these things, or “put the Lord in remembrance” as it says here because he has FORGOTTEN?  Or because he is so busy with all that he has going on in the world that he needs us to act as his secretary reminding him of his commitments?  Of course not!  

The fact is, God could do what he has decided to do without us ever praying at all!  Prayer is one of the great mysteries of the Bible, and part of this mystery is that God uses our prayers to accomplish his eternal purposes.  

Now some people see in that an excuse not to pray.  “Well, if God already knows what he is going to do, and has already determined to do it, then what is the point of me asking him for it!?  That sure seems like a waste of time.”

And I think THAT objection is a good place to bring in the second aspect of what it means to be an Isaiah watchman.

2.  The watchman (as he prays) expresses his desire to see God’s purpose fulfilled.  

Those who use this excuse (God’s gonna do what he’s decided to do, so there’s no point getting involved through prayer) betray that they don’t have a heart for lost people.  When God reveals to us that he wants us to pray for the lost, and we do not do that, we are saying that the lost do not matter to us.  Dare I say that using this excuse to not pray for lost people may even betray that the person with this attitude has no relationship with the Son of Man who CAME to seek and to save the lost?

The Isaiah watchman doesn’t pray for God’s purposes to be fulfilled because he’s obligated to, but because he has been chosen by God for such a glorious task

One of the great reformers (Calvin) said that prayer is digging up the treasures that God has already prepared for us.

I would add, NOT PRAYING shows that we don’t value what God values.  We don’t treasure what he has revealed to us that he is going to do.  And if we truly treasure gold or silver, we are willing to toil in our digging to get to it, and when we truly value what God values, we will toil in our prayers until we see his purposes accomplished.

The text says that these watchmen “shall never be silent”  and they “take no rest”.  Do you see in these phrases the revelation of what is in the watchman’s heart?   It is an ever-present desire that God’s eternal purposes would be accomplished.  And that heart attitude that is always present frequently erupts into a verbal expression of longing for God’s will to be done.  And that’s prayer!

So the Isaiah watchman is reminding God of his eternal purposes because he longs to see those purposes worked out.  But there is still one more aspect of this watchman’s ministry to point out.

3.  The watchman prays for the establishing of Jerusalem.  

In the Bible Jerusalem represents the meeting place between God and his people.  We know that as holy history has unfolded, that place is no longer a geographical location in the Middle East.  Jesus said in Matthew 18:20  “For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”  The CHURCH, not the cathedral, or the sanctuary, but THE CHURCH, the Body of Christ, made up of Jews and Gentiles, Male and Female, Slave and Free… this is where God meets with his people.  So the establishing of Jerusalem is the establishing of Christ’s Church!  

That is what these watchmen are commissioned by God to pray for.  That is what they are to remind God of constantly:  that he has sovereignly determined to build his church!    

How I desire for God’s people to see that prayer for missions is so much more than just praying for the messengers.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with praying for missionaries.  Paul asked the churches to pray for him.  But in your prayers for missions, don’t forget to pray for those lost people that Jesus desires to bring into His Church!

And as you pray for the lost millions of whatever people God has called you to be an Isaiah watchman for, here is what is so wonderful:  GOD is the one who commissioned you to pray for them!  And he is asking you to remind him of what he has already determined to do!  And he WILL find those lost people whom he has chosen, and for whom you are praying.  

In Matthew 18, vs. 12-14, we read this…

What do you think?  If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?  And if he finds it, truly, I say to you, he rejoices over it more than over the ninety-nine that never went astray.  So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that ONE of these little ones should perish.

Do you see what this parable is teaching in Matthew?  The man is not going to rest until all the sheep are saved.  Jesus compares this shepherd to his Father.  He says, “It is not his will that one… should perish.”  The Father is not going to leave a single sheep behind!  He is going to “establish Jerusalem.”  He already knows those who are His among the people here where I am living, and HE WILL save them.  Speaking of his followers, Jesus said in John 6:37…

“All that the Father gives me will come to me.”    In verse 39 he said, “And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose NOTHING of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.”

In John 10:16 Jesus said,

“And I have other sheep that are not of this fold.  I MUST bring them also…. and then in verses 27-29  “My sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me.  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

Jesus has sheep right here in… (where I live)… that the Father has given to him!  Right now, they are lost, but they WILL BE FOUND.  As the Good Shepherd, he has committed himself to that, and he wants us to remind him of it!

As an Ezekiel watchmen preparing to labor among this unreached people, that encourages me!  And it should encourage you whom God is calling to be an Isaiah watchman for this people group.