Erasing Hell: What God Said about Eternity, and the Things We've Made Up by Chan Francis & Sprinkle Preston

Author:Chan, Francis & Sprinkle, Preston [Sprinkle, Preston]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: love, Rob Bell, Jesus, Francis Chan, Crazy Love, Satan, Forgotten God, universalism, hell, Love Wins
Publisher: David C. Cook
Published: 2011-06-30T20:00:00+00:00

“God … commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (vv. 30–31)

There’s no cross, no atonement, no forgiveness, no conversion testimony, and no God-loves-you-and-has-a-wonderful-plan-for-your-life. Not that these things are unnecessary—Paul himself will talk about these on other occasions. But what these people needed to hear most was that Jesus has been raised from the dead and was going to judge them if they didn’t repent.

Like most of you, I get annoyed at those street preachers who carry on about wrath and judgment—I wish they’d talk more about grace and love. Sometimes I wonder if they do more harm than good. Yet as I sit back and arrogantly judge their effectiveness, I must admit that Paul’s sermon in Acts 17 sounds an awful lot like the preacher I heard screaming at the beach last week!

The point is this: While much of our church culture believes that talk of wrath and judgment is toxic and unloving, Paul didn’t seem to have a problem with these things. In fact, Paul believed that these were essential truths. Similar to John the Baptist and Jesus, Paul believed that warning people of the wrath to come was actually loving. If my two-year-old son runs out into the street, is it unloving to warn him of the destruction coming in the form of a Chevy 4x4? Does anyone criticize the fireman for waking up a family to rescue them from a burning house? Does anyone blame a doctor for telling a person that he has cancer that must be treated if he is going to live?

No doubt, many Christians have abused the ideas of judgment and wrath. One of the first sermons I ever understood, I heard when I was twelve years old. A preacher screamed from stage about the horrors of hell. He then warned us not to reject Jesus—and his exact words were, “It would be better for you to bite your tongue off and spit it out!” We have probably all been exposed to one of those preachers, who can’t wait to tell everyone to repent, who only talks about judgment and wrath, yet never mentions love, forgiveness, compassion, and mercy. The Bible paints a much bigger picture of God, life, and the gospel than mere judgment and the need for repentance. Remember, it’s “good” news.

But just because some have swung the pendulum so far in the direction of wrath and judgment, let’s not swing it back too far the other direction and do away with what Scripture emphasizes. God is compassionate and just, loving and holy, wrathful and forgiving. We can’t sideline His more difficult attributes to make room for the palatable ones.

Now back to Paul.

I said earlier that Paul never wrote about the details of hell. However, there is one passage where he comes pretty close—a passage

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