Eternal Judgment, Matthew 11:11-19
During the last week since I covered this since last
Sunday morning I had two questions raised that needed some clarification and
decided that they were close enough in content that I would address them as one
particular doctrine: understanding what the Bible teaches about eternal
judgment. Eternal judgment is not a popular doctrine anymore; not that it was
ever a pleasant doctrine, but it was a true doctrine. It is a biblical truth
that is for many people, especially of a modern mindset, quite unpleasant. Up
until about 200 years ago there was hardly anyone within biblical orthodoxy who
held to any other position other than eternal unending conscious torment for
those who were unsaved and eternal blessing in heaven for those who are saved.
But in the last 200 years, due to several influences, this has become
unpopular. It is still primarily true of most doctrinal statements, of most
evangelicals and most fundamentalists. However, in the last few years there
have been a number of pastors, "known evangelical pastors" who in
other areas of their theology are pretty orthodox, and a number of well-known
British theologians who have taken the position known as annihilationism; that
while there may be an unbelievably long time of punishment it is not forever
and ever.
One of the things we should understand whenever we
read about this from the lips of British evangelicals is that it is just not
their tradition to hold to a firm view of verbal plenary inspiration and
inerrancy of the Scripture like we have in the United States. Even someone like
C.S. Lewis would not hold to the same view of inerrancy and inspiration of
Scripture that we would. This just has not been the tradition within the
British evangelical camp, and so as a result of the fact that they don't have
quite as high a view of Scripture they do have problems when in comes to some
areas. But this isn't only restricted to a few well-known names within British
evangelicalism, it is true in different areas in the United States and this has
led to a certain degree of confusion about what the Bible teaches about eternal
condemnation.
Because of the drift of our culture over the last 200
years there are many evangelicals who have shifted to some degree in their
emphasis in their gospel presentation because they really don't want to talk
about the fact that if you reject Christ then you are going to be in unending
fiery torments in the lake of fire forever and ever. This is a modern cultural
concept of a loving God that somehow dominates the thinking of even
unbelievers, and it raises this spectre that somehow God gleefully enjoying the
torments of the unsaved. And a lot of people just don't know how to handle
that. Because they would rather think on the positive in terms of salvation they
somewhat minimize the negatives of the condemnation. However, that has a couple
of negative consequences, not the least of which is that it diminishes our
passion to give the gospel to the lost, to give the gospel to those who are on
a fast track to a horrible eternity. They don't think about that.
Recently I read a biography on C.T Studd. He was a
remarkable man. We would have some problems with his theology because he was
one of a group of missionaries and leaders who came out of British evangelicalism
in the late 19th century that was heavily influenced by what is
known as Keswick theology or victorious life theology, and it was heavily
imbued with a certain level of mysticism. We would not agree with that. There
were perhaps some other aspects of his theology that we would not agree with,
but as a young man he and his two brothers grew up in a sports environment.
This was at the very birth of the whole modern sports and athletic focus. It
was just beginning to take off in England and when they were in high school (he
was the third oldest of the three brothers) together they played on the cricket
team and it received national recognition in Britain. Then they went to
Cambridge. At one point they were all on the cricket team and CT was the best of
the three. He looked forward to an incredible career as a cricket player. He
made almost front page news, he and six other students at Cambridge who were
all in different athletics and had gained national recognition, because they
had become believers while at university and they were going to give their
lives to Christ on the mission field in China and spend their lives in
obscurity rather than embracing the fame and fortune that would have been
theirs as athletes in England. And they would in some cases give their lives
for the gospel in taking it to the unbeliever.
He spent his early career in China and then later went
to Africa. And one of the things that motivated Studd was that he would have
dreams at night where he envisioned thousands upon thousands of black Africans
going off to the lake of fire, because they were desperately in need of hearing
the gospel of Jesus Christ. For him the reality of eternal damnation for the
lost was so real that it spurred him to incredible sacrifice and incredible devotion
to the gospel, and to spend his life in ways that would be so foreign to many
of us who have grown up with so many creaturely comforts that we can't imagine
it. His doctors told him just before he went to Africa—in fact everyone
prohibited him; no one wanted him to go because his health was in such a state
due to asthma, malaria and heart conditions—that he wouldn't last a year
in Africa. He lasted eighteen years. And when you read of the difficulties that
he faced and surmounted. And when he died he left a huge missionary
organization in Africa that quickly quadrupled in size and they were sending
missionaries to Central America, to South America, to China and to India. In
fact, he was one of those great pioneer missionaries in the late eighteen hundreds
to his death in 1931 who opened up Africa to the gospel. But one of the things
that motivated him was that clear reality of the eternal condemnation of those
without Christ.
We live in a day now of relativism, a day of
confusion, a day when people, even among people we expect to be really sharp
and precise on Scripture, fudge on some of these areas. We have an example in a
book that came out about four or five years ago by a well-known pastor, Rob
Bell. His book was called Love Wins, a book about heaven, hell and the fate of every person
who ever lived. When it hit the mainstream press he was interviewed on morning
talk shows, on Fox, even ABC, Good Morning America, because he held to a view
of universalism: that eventually everybody is going to end up in heaven. He
rejected or had problems with the notion of eternal punishment. But that is
just the tip of the iceberg. Even here in Houston we hit national and church
history prominence in 1982 when a Church of Christ minister by the name of
Edward Fudge published a book entitled The Fire That Consumes where he argued that
there was no eternal condemnation to those who were lost but that they would
eventually be just destroyed. Their souls would be annihilated and there would
not be any everlasting punishment. That view is not unique to him, it goes back
into the early church. It is called annihilationism, the view that eternal
punishment isn't really eternal but that the unsaved will eventually be
obliterated and no longer exist.
The problem for them is the nature of eternal
punishment. They just think that this doesn't fit with the character of God, it
doesn't fit with the Bible, and they recoil from it. For many of them they are
asking what I believe was one of the original rebuttal statements of Satan to
God's condemnation of Satan and the angels who followed him when they rebelled
in eternity past. Ezekiel 28:12ff; Isaiah 14:12-14 give the description of that
original fall of Satan when he disobeyed God. And God gave him a time period
wherein he was allowed to influence as many angels as he could and
approximately a third of the angelic host followed him in his rebellion. There
must have been some sort of trial/judgment where these rebels were brought
before the throne of God's judgment and a sentence was passed upon them. We get
a picture of this is Matthew 25:41. This is stated in the middle of a parable
that Jesus told that tells us about the judgment of the sheep (believers) and
the goats (unbelievers who would be sent to the lake of fire). NASB
"Then He will also say to those on His
left, ÔDepart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been
prepared for the devil and his angels".
The key word to focus on right now is that word
"prepared", the Greek word HETOIMAZO
in the perfect tense. In the perfect tense what is being talked about is some
event that happened in past time. They key word refers to completed action, not
something where you are just referring to something in terms of its past
action, it may be continuing into the present; it is talking about a completed
past action. This indicates that the everlasting fire, the lake of fire, was
created, and that creation was completed at some time in the past. Jesus is talking about this at His
first advent, so this would be some time preceding the creation of man; it was
prepared for the devil and his angels. It wasn't created for human beings; it
was created as a punishment for angels. The reason I point that out is because
one of the arguments used by those who rejected the idea of eternal
never-ending punishment is that human beings were not designed to be eternal.
But the lake of fire was created not for human beings but for angels. It is a
never-ending punishment. Angels do not go through physical or corporeal death,
so that this was created to be a never-ending punishment.
Another question we should ask: If this was created in
eternity past for the devil and his angels, why aren't they there? If God
created the prison, the punishment for the angels, why didn't He put them there
then? It seems that one of the most likely explanations—the Bible doesn't
expressly state this but it is inferred from other things in the
Scripture—is that there must have been an objection. There are several ways
in which people have formulated this objection. I've tried to put them all
together and believe it went something like this. Satan was saying something
along the lines of the current objections that we hear about never-ending
punishment: How can a just God send His creatures to the lake of fire? The
punishment must fit the crime and a penalty of never-ending punishment seems to
be much more severe than any son or act of disobedience. Another form of that
argument that we will look at is the argument that God is love, so Satan
perhaps also asked: How can a God who loves send His creatures to an eternity
in never-ending fiery torments? And perhaps as Satan raised this objection God
decided—why He decided to do this we don't know, we don't get a picture
into these issues—to create an object lesson (the human race) in order to
demonstrate why this punishment was so serious that it was a punishment to fit
the crime; and that as a punishment that fit the crime it was perfectly
compatible with both His justice and His righteousness, as well as His love.
Because in many ways when modern man looks at love, when we look at a crime we
want to love the criminal and forget about the victim; we always want to direct
our love in the wrong direction and say, well we can let them off in five or
six years because they committed mass murder. We need to improve them; we need
to love them. That is love directed toward the criminal, but it is not love
directed toward the rest of society that may become the victims of his
criminality and it is not love towards the victims of his previous crimes. It
is a pseudo love, an anaemic concept of love; but that is what characterizes a
lot of modern culture.
One of the most difficult terms to describe is love.
Even the Bible describes characteristics of love in 1 Corinthians 13, but it
doesn't really define it. If we look love up in the dictionary it talks about
love as being an emotion. But the Bible doesn't treat love as an emotion, it
treats it as a mental attitude, a mental attitude on the object of love, and
the one who loves is concerned about the best for the object of love. It is not
what is best for the one loving; that is a self-centered love. It is
understanding with an objective standard that you want the best for the one you
love. You want them to improve; you want them to rise to the highest level of
hopes and expectations. When they do wrong you want them to learn the lessons
from doing, as harsh as that may be at times. Parents who are so
over-protective of their children out of what they think is love are actually
hurting their children because their children aren't being prepared to assume
responsibilities for both success and failure when they become adults. Under
the concept of pseudo-love parents are often over-protective and spoil their
children and protect them from ever experiencing the consequences of their bad
decisions. That is a superficial, shallow, anaemic kind of love that is not
part of the biblical pattern of love.
So the nature of eternal punishment is often viewed by
modern man as being incompatible with the character and essence of God. There
are two solutions that are offered. The first is called universalism, and that
is the view that everybody is going to end up in heaven, even those who are the
"wicked" or the unbeliever. They may go through a period of
punishment but then they will be released and then they, too, will be in
heaven. This is the view that eventually all human beings will find their rest
in God and spend eternity in heaven. The second option is called annihilationism.
This is the view that eternal punishment isn't really eternal but that the
unsaved will eventually be obliterated and no longer exist.
When we look at this whole issue of divine judgment
what is the common word that people think of when they think of the destiny of
the unsaved? It is the word hell. This is a fuzzy term when it comes to
theology. You'd be surprised if I told you who it was but yesterday I read a
document by someone who is a good friend of mine. He probably should know better;
I think he did this a long time ago. He constantly referred to this article he
had written on hell, on eternal punishment, to the lake of fire as hell. This
is a great mistake. The problem with dealing with this biblically is that we
have to clarify our language and vocabulary. The English word "hell"
is derived from the German, the Dutch, and probably the old Norse. According to
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology the English word may be in part from old
Norse, Hel,
which in Norse mythology was the name Loki's daughter. Loki is kind of the evil
god, the messenger who is always fighting Thor. The daughter, Hel, is the one
who ruled over the evil dead in Niflheim, the lowest of all the worlds. Then
the Dictionary says, "It was the transfer of a pagan concept and word to a
Christian idiom". So the word "hell" isn't an accurate
reflection of either of the Greek or Hebrews words for which it normally stands,
which is Gehenna. That is how it is predominantly used in the New Testament. In
the Old Testament it is predominantly a translation of the Hebrew word Sheol. When
you get into the New Testament it is predominantly a translation of the Greek
word Gehenna or the Valley of Hinnom.
We went through a number of studies on Hinnom and
Gehenna as not a reference to eternal punishment in fiery torments but as a
depiction of divine judgment in time, because the Valley of Hinnom in the Old
Testament period was the location of Israel's greatest sin where they immolate
it. That means they burned alive their infants in the arms of Molech, a Moabite
god who was the god of fire. How they would placate this god was to put their
babies, their live infants into his arms. There is a furnace there and their
children would be burned in the arms of Molech. God brought a judgment on Israel—that
was part of the reason He judged Israel—and that destroyed them as a
nation in 586BC. In the passages we read in
Jeremiah and Ezekiel God used this location, the Valley of Hinnom, to be the
place where the dead would be buried when the Babylonians came in and
slaughtered thousands of Jews. They were buried in that same location so that
the Valley of Hinnom became an idiom for the place where God brought judgment
on Israel—in time, not in eternity. So it is that concept.
But hell not only translates Gehenna, it is also used
in a number of passages to translate Hades. For example, in the KJV
in Matthew 11:23 it reads, "And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto
heaven, shalt be brought down to hellÉ" But in the Greek it is Hades.
Hades is a totally different concept in Scripture than the lake of fire, and it
is a different concept from Gehenna. These need to be distinguished, but too
often the translators of Scripture blur these things together and it leaves
people with a basic confusion.
According to Luke 16:19-25, which is the story of
Lazarus and the rich man, Lazarus dies and he is said to go to Abraham's bosom
or Paradise. When the rich man dies he goes to a place where there are fiery
torments. For he says to Abraham, "Please let Lazarus come and dip his
finger in the water and put it on my tongue, because of my fiery torment".
So he feels pain, it is fiery pain, and he is in torments. Abraham's bosom is
where all Old Testament believers went when they died.
When Jesus died on the cross we are told that He went
to Sheol and announced the completion of the payment for sin. Another
compartment of Sheol/Hades is Tartarus, which is a place of deep darkness where
a specified group of fallen angels from the Genesis 6 episode are locked down,
according to 2 Peter 2:4, until their final judgment. Jesus appears to them and
announces that sin has been paid for; redemption has been accomplished. Then He
took the Old Testament believers with Him so that Paradise shifted from being a
location in Sheol to being in heaven, so that today when a person goes to Hades
(the Greek term for Sheol) they are going to this place of temporary torments.
It is the holding cell until they are eventually brought to judgment at the
great white throne judgment at the end of the millennial kingdom.
So two of the words we need to clarify are, first of
all, hell; that hell is a bad word to use for a translation if anything,
because in the Bible is not consistent. The Old Testament refers exclusively to
Sheol, but in the New Testament it refers to Gehenna and also to Hades; so we
have to distinguish hell—Hades and Sheol, which refer to the place where
unbelievers go when they die—and the lake of fire. In Revelation 20:14 we
read, NASB "Then
death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death,
the lake of fire." This occurs at the great white throne judgment. This
tells us that Hades is a totally different place than the lake of fire, so we
have to keep that distinguished.
Now when we look at some of the issues
that are raised in this whole issue of the lake of fire and eternal judgment we
have to understand what some of these arguments are, and they usually start
with their view of the essence of God. I understand that for a lot of people it
is very difficult to understand how the love of God and the justice of God are
compatible, and this is what is exemplified in these particular statements that
I am going to show you. Because when you come out of a culture that has an
anemic or erroneous view of love and you read that idea into the Bible, then
you are going to end up having problems. If you come out of a culture that has
an anemic view of justice then you are also going to have problems because what
happens with these different theologians who have expressed these views is that
ultimately they have difficulty understanding how the love and the
righteousness and justice of God are compatible.
The first quote I have here is from
Michael Green. He has written a number of different books and is fairly orthodox
in his theology in most areas that I am aware of. He is a little Charismatic is
some areas but he is basically a good solid, mainstream orthodox evangelical.
However, he has rejected the idea of unending punishment and he is an
annihilationist, and here is his argument, which comes from his book Evangelism
Through the Local Church in which he has a chapter dealing with ultimate
judgment for the unbeliever:
What sort of God would He be if He
could rejoice eternally in heaven with the saved when downstairs the cries of
the lost make an agonizing cacophony? Such a God is not the person revealed in
Scripture as utterly just and utterly loving.
He labels this traditional view of hell a
"doctrine of savagery".
This is his view, and it is from an evangelic who it fairly orthodox.
The second view I have here is from a liberal Anglican theologian by the name
of John A.T. Robinson. He is very, very liberal. He wrote:
Christ, in Origen's old words,
remains on the cross so long as one sinner remains in hellÉ
Origen was a church father who believed in
universalism.
É That is not speculation, it is a
statement grounded in the very necessity of God's nature. In a universe of love
there can be no heaven which tolerates a chamber of horrors, no hell for any
which does not at the same time make it hell for God.
What they are basically doing is starting with a
limited, anaemic, non-biblical definition of love, justice and righteousness,
and they read that into the Scripture. That doesn't fit their concept of love,
so therefore He can't be a God who would send His creatures to an eternity in
the lake of fire.
When we look at Scripture we see the essence of God.
God is sovereign, righteousness, justice, eternal life; He knows all the
knowable, is omniscient; He is present to everything in His
creation—omnipresent; He is able to do all which He desires to
do—omnipotent; He is absolute truth and He is immutable. When we talk
about the integrity of God we focus on four of these attributes: His
righteousness, justice, love, and truth. Scripture in the Old Testament often
links these four together. "Righteousness and justice are the foundation
of your throne, and love and truth go forth from it".
Righteousness refers to the absolute standard of God's
character. God is, as the apostle John writes in 1 John, "Light in whom
there is no darkness at all". God can have no fellowship, no relationship
with any creature that does not measure up to His standard of perfect righteousness.
That is not an arbitrary decision; that is in the nature of reality. Remember,
reality is defined by who God is and what God says; it is not defined by our
experience. Part of the problem with the way these theologians approach this is
that they approach it without looking at what the Scripture says first and
foremost.
We see that in the character of God He is perfectly
loving. Therefore whatever He does is a definition of love. If your definition
and my definition of love have problems with what God does, then it is our
definition that is wrong, not God's. We don't tweak the character of God or
what He says in Scripture to fit our preconceived notions of love. God is there
to teach us what true love is and what righteousness is. And in many ways there
are things that happen in Scripture that do not fit with the modern man's
conception of that which is righteous.
Then we have the other approach, which is that of John
R. Stott, a noted evangelical who went to be with the Lord a few years
ago—also British; very Reformed. Among the arguments he used against
everlasting punishment in the lake of fire is the argument of justice. He said:
God's justice implies that the
penalty inflicted will be commensurate with the evil done.
What we have to understand here is the nature of God's
justice. And when we look at this statement there are several problems. First
of all, one of the problems that we see in what he writes is that his
assumption is that our eternal destiny is determined by personal sins. He says:
Eternal conscious torment is
seriously disproportionate to sins consciously committed in time.
What is the problem there? You all should know this.
It is that we are not sent to the lake of fire for our personal sins. We are
not condemned for personal sins; we are condemned because of Adam's original
sin. We are born dead in our trespasses and sins. We sin because we are a
sinner; we are not a sinner because we sin. We are born spiritually dead; we
are born corrupt already. Personal sin is the result of that. This is the basic
problem many people have difficulty understanding. A person is not sent to the
lake of fire because of what he has done; he is sent to the lake of fire
because he is dead and is unrighteous. He is born that way, and he does not
avail himself of the solution to his problem: that Christ paid the penalty for
sins. 2 Corinthians chapter five says that God, because of Christ, is no longer
imputing sins to the world. That is not the issue at all.
So one problem that Stott has—and this is
typical of many of them—is a weak view of sin. If we base our
condemnation on our individual sins then we think well, this condemnation
doesn't really fit the crime. This is the problem that many people have. It is
the problem, I think, that Lucifer had. When he disobeyed God he was thinking:
Well the creature can act independently of God. Why is it such a big deal? How
can this eternal unending punishment fit the crime? And God says, let me show
you and He sets up this test case. He creates the earth and puts Adam and Eve
on the earth, and establishes everything on the earth after the original
judgment because of Satan, and He said everything was perfect. There is no sin.
Adam and Eve were created in a state of righteousness in the image and likeness
of God, untarnished by sin. They are given a test. The test is the fruit of the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You can eat of anything in the garden.
Everything is good to eat, except for this one tree. The instant you eat of it
you will certainly die. That was the punishment. So when they ate of that tree
they died, and there were consequences to that act of disobedience.
If I was to ask you to list what you think are the
worst sins you can perform, eating a piece of fruit would not be one of them.
But as an act of disobedience to God it set up a chain reaction of unintended
consequences that reverberates through the entire universe. It changes the
fabric of God's creation; everything is corrupt. They both died spiritually and
are separated from God. And this is such a serious, heinous thing that the only
way it can be solved is for God to send His Son to die on the cross, to bear in
His own perfect body, in His divine perfection, the judgment for our sins. That
tells us just a little bit about how serious that sin is. But then, if you
think about it a little bit more you realize that all of the hunger, all of the
famine, all of the violence, all of the criminality, all of the disease, all of
the pestilence, all of the horrible things that have happened in human history,
all of the horrible things that have happened in your life, are the result of
the fact that Adam ate a piece of fruit.
What God is demonstrating to Satan is that while the
crime may not loom serious its consequences are incredibly serious, far beyond
anything we can ever imagine. As a result of that there must be punishment that
is commensurate with the crime. The crime is against God, not against anybody else.
It is a crime against the infinite, righteous and holy God. Therefore the
nature of sin has an infinite quality to it, because it is against an infinite
God. Therefore it requires an infinite or eternal punishment.
Let's just think about the justice of God and how it
is displayed in numerous events in the Old Testament. For example, we can think
of the flood of Noah's day. God said of the entire human race, except for Noah
and his family: "Their thoughts are evil continually". And what is
the judgment? He is going to kill every living creature, not just every human
being—excluding the fish of the sea—through a worldwide flood. A
lot of people will say that seems a little extreme. The second example is when
God brought judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. He sent the angels to warn Lot and
his family and gave them an opportunity to leave, and He
said: "Escape; do not look behind you; do not stay anywhere in the
valley; escape to the mountains lest you be swept away." So what does
Lot's wife do? She turns around and looks back. But God is true to His Word and
she is turned into a pillar of salt instantly. God recognizes the horror of
sin, which we don't. So part of the problem here is that we don't have a robust
enough concept of the horrors of sin.
Then we have the situation of priestly rebellion
against Moses with two of Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu who brought unauthorized
fire into tabernacle for the burnt offering. Instantly God took their life. He
is making a point. Even the least infraction—you can't worship the way
you want to; you have to do it God's way or you're dead. We have the example at
Ai. After the wonderful victory the Israelites had at Jericho God told them not
to take any plunder. Achan did. When the next battle came at Ai, because there was
sin in the camp, they sent out 3000 troops, 36 were killed, everybody screamed
Woe is me and went into a panic because they expected God would give them
victory, and He didn't. Achan was revealed as the one who had violated God's
command. He recognized that and confessed his sin, but God said, nevertheless
there will be a punishment; Achan and all of his family were to die.
Again and again and again we see that God has a much
higher level of seriousness about sin than we do. We want to rationalize, it justify
it as not that bad. God is constantly lowering the boom on sin. We have another
event with Uzzah. As they are carrying the ark on a cart instead of carrying it
the proper way the wheels hit a bump in the road, the ark is jostled and it
looked like it was going to fall over. Uzzah reaches his hand out to stabilize
God (you can't stabilize God); he touches the ark and instantly dies. And this
isn't just an Old Testament thing. In the New Testament in Acts chapter five we
read of Ananias and Sapphira who lied to the Holy Spirit. When Peter exposes
that each of them in turn dies instantly. This expresses the seriousness of
sin.
Thomas Aquinas makes an interesting and accurate
assessment. He said: "Sin is an attack on the infinite and holy character
of God. God therefore sets the penalties for sin in this world and the
nextÉ" Sin is against God, is what he is saying. God is the one who
determines what a just punishment is; no one else can do that. "É He
justly condemned sinners for Adam's sin and for their own, and He plainly
teaches that he punishes the wicked forever. Certainly God is just in doing so.
The reality is that the magnitude of eternal condemnation does indeed fit the
crime."
What are some of the scriptural passages? Matthew
25:41, 46: When Jesus consigns the goats to the lake of fire He says,
"Depart from me you cursed into everlasting fire". The word there is AIONIOS,
which applies to fire here; in verse 46 it also applies to punishment and
eternal life. So if AIONIOS is the adjective for
eternal life for the sheep and it means forever and ever unending life, then it
must also in context refer to forever and ever unending punishment and forever
and ever unending fire. It has to have the same meaning because they are contrasted
with one another. In each uses it means never-ending. Matthew 25:46 NASB ÒThese will go away into
eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.Ó
What is the basis for their going in to
one or the other? Faith in Christ. That's it. That's the only basis, so we are
saved by faith; we are saved by grace. We are saved not by works that we do but
because Christ paid the penalty for sin.
Revelation 14:9 NASB "Then
another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, 'If anyone
worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his
hand, [10] he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed
in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire
and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the
Lamb'."
"Drink of the wine of the wrath of
God" is picturesque language for saying God is going to judge him and he
will experience the full judicial force of the wrath of heaven upon his life;
"É tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels
and in the presence of the Lamb" is talking about Tribulation unbelievers
who take the mark of the beast.
Revelation 20:10 NASB
"And the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and
brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be
tormented day and night forever and ever."
It is true that the word AIONIOS,
just like its Hebrew counterpart, may not refer to something that is
never-ending. It may refer to something just latched to the end of an age or
the end of a period. But when we look at how this is used in context, and the
Greek language here, it starts with the preposition EIS,
which is the preposition of direction and it expresses the end goal of
something. It is "to the ages of the ages". You can't say eternity in
any other way in Greek. It uses AIONIOS
twice, meaning forever and ever.
2 Thessalonians 1:9 NASB
"These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction [AIONIOS],
away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power."
Revelation 20:14 NASB
"Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the
second death, the lake of fire. [15] And if anyoneÕs name was not found written
in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." The lake of
fire is distinct from Hades. That is the future location of that punishment.
Revelation 17:8 NASB
ÒThe beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come up out of the
abyss and go to destruction. And those who dwell on the earth, whose name has
not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, will
wonder when they see the beast, that he was and is not and will come. [11] The
beast which was and is not, is himself also an eighth and is {one} of the
seven, and he goes to destruction."
This word "perdition" is the
same word used in John 3:16 for "perish". It doesn't simply refer to
destruction, which is the argument some have: see, this word APOLEIA
means destruction, it doesn't mean never-ending punishment; it means they are
just going to be obliterated. When you look at these passages perdition
describes those in the lake of fire. God does not want any to perish. Ezekiel
18:32 NASB ÒFor I have no pleasure in the death of anyone who dies,Ó
declares the Lord GOD. ÒTherefore, repent and live.Ó Throughout history it is the
constant story. God is offering opportunities to the lost to come to Him and be
saved, to be rescued from eternal condemnation.
1 Timothy 2:4 NASB "who
desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."
That should be our attitude. We desire all men to be saved. But they don't
hear. How can they hear without a preacher and how can the preacher go without
a message? We have to proclaim the gospel. It is not going to happen just
because God wants it to happen. So we have to understand the message. A lot of
people go to the lake of fire, and they go to the lake of fire because they are
born condemned.
John 3:18 NASB "He who
believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already
[born condemned], because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God."
John 3:36 NASB "He who
believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who does not obey the Son will not
see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."