The Justice of Eternal Hell

"My uncle Billy lived for 75 years. How can it be just or fair for God to punish him eternally in Hell for the sins of only 75 years?" This is perhaps one of the most common objections to the doctrine of Hell. The heart of this objection lies in the comparison of eternity to time and the apparent severity of eternal punishment for sin that was confined to what is an infinitesimal speck by comparison.

Though there are several flaws in this objection, we shall attempt to answer them as succinctly as possible.

First of all, we should deal with the mistaken assumption that Hell is full of repentant souls. It is frequently asserted and almost always simply assumed that the souls in Hell now "get it." Only now it is too late for them to be sorry about what they've done. I defy anyone to prove that notion from Scripture. If the Bible gives us any indication of the attitude of the damned souls in Hell, it is that they continue to be sinful and unrepentant. This is in the story of Lazarus and the rich man. Even though the rich man was suffering the fires of hell, he still though he was too good to speak to Lazarus directly. He even wants Abraham to command Lazarus to wait on his needs. I have been in countries where there still exists the strata of classes dividing servants from their bosses and it is common practice for the "help" to be spoken about, even in a derogatory manner, right in his or her presence and if he or she weren't present. I recognize this immediately in the rich man. We do not see him begging for forgiveness from Lazarus for his former contempt and mistreatment of him. No! He still feels that he is better than Lazarus and that it is not unreasonable that even in Hell he should have Lazarus wait on him.

It seems to be quite an unwarranted assumption that once people get to Hell they finally wake up and realize the error of their ways and that their torment consists in being too late to rectify things or to make amends. If we take this story as any kind of indication about the attitudes of the damned, then the objection evaporates instantly. Why is it unfair to eternally punish people who are going to continue eternally to shake their fists at God and refuse to admit their wrong?

But secondly, this objection belittles both God and sin. It belittles sin because it belittles God. A small view of sin is a direct result of a small view of God. God is infinite. God is the ultimate Good. Any action made against His prescribed will is, in its very essence, an affront to the infinite God, maker of heaven and earth. But the real kicker is this: God sees all men in one of two ways - either in Christ or in sin. If your sins are not covered by Christ then God, since He is eternal and infinite, must necessarily continue infinitely and eternally to see you in sin. Case closed.

Patristic Covenant Theology

Dispensationalists like to throw around the term "Replacement Theology" in their diatribes against the classical Reformed framework, called Covenant Theology. In its simplest form, Covenant Theology is the belief that God has always had His Church, i.e., His elect people. In the Old Testament, this elect community was comprised mostly of Jews. In the New Testament, it is comprised of men and women from all nations. Hence the Dispensationalist label, "Replacement" Theology" is actually a libel. Nowhere is it ever asserted that the New Testament Church replaces Israel as God's chosen people. Rather, God's chosen people have been expanded beyond the boundaries of national Israel.

In my opening sentence, I mentioned that this is the classical Reformed theological framework. But truth be told, it is much older than the Reformation era.

It is quite clear that most of the Apostolic Fathers (the first generation of Church leaders and theologians after the death of the Apostles) saw the Church as the inheritors of the Old Testament prophetic promises. This, of course, is in keeping with what Paul writes in Galatians and Romans 4. The early Fathers clearly believed that they were keeping in line with the doctrine of the Apostles by understanding the Old Testament prophecies this way. This belief continued to be the norm of Christian thought until the rise of John Nelson Darby. Darby, as you may know, is the founder of the modern dispensationalist scheme of interpretation.

Here are a few sample of early patristic thought in this regard:

Justin Martyr writes: "Since God announced he would send a new covenant...we will not understand this of the old law and its proselytes, but of Christ and his proselytes, namely us Gentiles."

Irenaeus writes: "'But...the King has actually come...and has bestowed upon men the good things which were announced beforehand...By his advent he himself fulfilled all things, and still does fulfil in the church the new covenant foretold by the law."

Hippolytus, commenting on a passage in Isaiah says, "For it is not of the Jews that he spake of old, nor is it of the city of Zion, but of the church."

Even earlier than these, we find Clement of Rome exhorting the Corinthian church to humility and unity by an appeal to the lives of the saints and marytrs. Yet, who does he refer to? Abel, Noah, Abraham, Lot, Joseph, Moses and David. Then, to drive home his point, he points to his own day and the martyrdom of Peter and Paul.

The whole arguement of chapter XIII of the Epistle of Barnabas is that the Church, not national Israel, is the heir of the covenant God made with Abraham.

Familiarity with Church History serves as a corrective and precaution against error. Had the Christians of yesteryear been familiar with the standard Christian understanding of Old Testament prophecy, Dispensationalism would never had gotten off the ground.

Athenagoras on Abortion, circa 177 AD

What man of sound mind, therefore, will affirm, while such is our character, that we are murderers? For we cannot eat human flesh till we have killed some one. The former charge, therefore, being false, if any one should ask them in regard to the second, whether they have seen what they assert, not one of them would be so barefaced as to say that he had. And yet we have slaves, some more and some fewer, by whom we could not help being seen; but even of these, not one has been found to invent even such things against us. For when they know that we cannot endure even to see a man put to death, though justly; who of them can accuse us of murder or cannibalism? Who does not reckon among the things of greatest interest the contests of gladiators and wild beasts, especially those which are given by you? But we, deeming that to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him, have abjured such spectacles. How, then, when we do not even look on, lest we should contract guilt and pollution, can we put people to death? And when we say that those women who use drugs to bring on abortion commit murder, and will have to give an account to God for the abortion, on what principle should we commit murder? For it does not belong to the same person to regard the very fœtus in the womb as a created being, and therefore an object of God’s care, and when it has passed into life, to kill it; and not to expose an infant, because those who expose them are chargeable with child-murder, and on the other hand, when it has been reared to destroy it. But we are in all things always alike and the same, submitting ourselves to reason, and not ruling over it.

Predeterminate Plan and Foreknowledge

"But now how upside-down it is that it should be said that the cause of eternal foreknowledge is the occurrence of temporal things! But what else is it, to think that God foresees future things because they are going to happen, than to think that those things, once they have happened, are the cause of His highest providence?"

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Book V

This destroys the Arminian concept of Divine foreknowledge, especially their notion of foreseen faith being the cause of election. Arminianism is wrong, among other reasons, because it puts the cart before the horse. It would have human actions be the cause of God's foreknowledge. Scripture NEVER teaches that God's foreknowledge is causative. The decree of God is causative. Acts 2:23 lists it as "determinate plan and foreknowledge," in that order. God's "determinate plan" is the cause of all things. His "foreknowledge" is simply His cognition of His own plan.

If I write a novel in which one of the characters steps on a banana peel, slides down the hall and falls down the stairs, I will know (indeed foreknow) that this is going to happen even before I read the book. But my knowledge of the incident is not the cause of it. The cause of it is my active will to write the story that way. To my mind, this goes a long way toward answering the question of evil in relation to God's sovereignty over all. If my hypothetical character goes on to shoot the person who discarded the banana peel, I, as the author, am not personally guilty of murder: the character is. Yet that character could not not kill the banana peel culprit. In this, perhaps weak analogy, there is, I think, a hint of the relation between God's decree of all events and personal human responsibility. Human responsibility is not at odds in any way with Divine sovereignty because it is in God's sovereignty that He made men responsible to Him.

Looking back on the quotation from Boethius, the thought that occurs to me is this: God does not decree because He foreknows; rather, He foreknows because He has decreed. Herein lies the reason why so many people reject the doctrine of the Divine decree: it belittles man. God gets all the credit for man's faith, salvation and eternal share in glory. We should be immediately suspicious on any theological system which makes the will and power of finite man the hinge upon which God's plan turns.

Calvinist Continuists?

Recently I was perusing a well-known systematic theology when I come across a rather large section dealing with the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Mind you the book is not authored by one who would consider himself a Pentecostal. But I was amazed at how tainted by Pentecostalism this man's thinking was. He argues vehemently against the Cessationist position, whilst claiming to be "Reformed" (broadly defined). I have quoted from Warfield more than once that the Continuist position of Rome with regard to the supernatural gifts was one of the things for which the Reformers earned the name "Protestants. So, it is quite bewildering to me to see someone claiming to be Reformed, yet eager-beaver to defend the full gamut of Pentecostalist "gifts."

What perplexed me most of all was his way of handling the gift of prophecy. He essentially argues that prophecy in our day happens exactly like it did in Old Testament times, yet it does not carry the same authority. Somehow or other, God has decided to let the human mouthpiece taint the message more than the Prophets and Apostles. So now we have prophecy that is true, yet not necessarily accurate. What amazes me about this definition is that this is EXACTLY the same position taken by the Liberal Theologians of yesteryear regarding the Bible. Moreover, this brave defender of Scripture and its inspiration and authority has, with this definition, effectively destroyed the foundation for both.

If, in our day, God can allow humans to color revelation in such a way as to remove its absolute authority and inspiration, how pray tell, can we have any certainty that He wasn't making revelations this same way during the writing of the Bible? If Brother Billy Dwayne can inject something of himself into his prophecy so as to lessen its accuracy, and thereby its authority, how do I know that St. Paul didn't do the same thing? If Pastor Wayne can be inspired to give a direct revelation by God, which we are not allowed to inscripturate as a new New Testament, how do we know that Titus or 3 John has a higher form of inspiration?

This is one of many reasons that I hold to a strict form of Cessationism. Considering passages like Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18, 19, I wonder how people expect to escape the wrath of God when they hold such an abominably low view of inspiration.

Lest one be tempted to think that I am misrepresenting the Pentecostalist or Charismatic view of prophecy, let me tell you that I met an Assemblies of God pastor in Amboy, Illinois who told me personally that he was part of a team of Pentecostal scholars (ain't that a kick in the head!) who were compiling prophecies that had been given over the last decade or so, to be published as a special section in the back of a new Pentecostal Bible. They were going to publish a Bible with contemporary prophecies included. I want to know who gets included among this illustrious group of prophets? Who makes the call that you are one of them? And who decides which prophecies of yours get included? I defy anyone, including the author of the famed Systematic Theology to prove: A) That these Pentecostalists are not being consistent with their own principles, B) That this is not a denial of the sufficiency of Scripture, C) That any type of Continuism does not eventually lead here, and D) That the Biblical doctrines of the authority and inspiration of Scripture are not hereby destroyed.