ANNOUNCER: Some say that Jesus talked more about hell and eternal judgment than any other subject. Is this actually true? How should we think about this assertion? Thank you, friend, for joining us today. Glad to have you with us for Grace in Focus. This is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society. Our website is faithalone.org. At that website, you will find our store, where you can acquire our newly released Old Testament Commentary Volume 1. Also, Bob Wilkin’s latest book, The Gospel is Still Under Siege, is available there. Find it at faithalone.org/store. 

Now with today’s discussion, here are Bob Wilkin and Sam Marr. 

SAM: All right, everyone, we are continuing our discussion on Calvinism, and I guess, Reformed theology at large. But the topic of this section is going to be on Christ’s teachings about hell or Hades or judgment, all the above, because one of the chapters in this book, Jerry Vines makes the claim that Jesus said more about hell than any other, 13 percent of all his teaching was about judgment or hell. 

BOB: Yeah, and that’s on page 27 of Whosoever Will. And guess what? This is in the same chapter we talked about in the last session. This is in the chapter on John 3:16. Now let me ask you, Sam, where does John 3:16 mention hell? 

SAM: The closest thing you have is never perish. 

BOB: Never perish. And never perish is explained in verse 17. What does verse 17 suggest perish mean? 

SAM: Being condemned. 

BOB: Being condemned. And we could even say, eternally condemned. So I’ll give Jerry Vine a little bit of credit to say that John 3:16, because of the word perish, and because of verse 17, indirectly alludes to the Great White Throne Judgment of Revelation 20:11-15, wouldn’t you say? And so it is there indirectly. But there’s nothing about Hades, Sheol, Gehenna, or hell in these verses. To say there’s going to be condemnation for some people is not to explain anything about eternal conscious torment. We call it ECT, which I believe the Scriptures do teach, but that’s not present here. 

So let’s think about his claim that 13 percent of all of Jesus teaching was about judgment or hell. Well, I would suggest it’s not true that Jesus taught a lot about hell. I would say it is true he taught a lot about judgment, but His teaching about judgment wasn’t just about the Great White Throne Judgment. In fact, he didn’t say a whole lot about the Great White Throne Judgment. Most of his teaching about judgment concerned believers being judged at the Judgment Seat of Christ, there’s a lot of parables about the Judgment Seat of Christ. And on top of that, he taught a lot about judgment in this life, that if we are rebelling against God, we are going to reap the consequences in this life, or we’ll be blessed in this life. He talked about the blessing and cursing motif. So most of his teaching on judgment was either believers being judged after this life is over, or believers or unbelievers being judged in this life in terms of temporal judgment. 

SAM: So in this chapter is Jerry Vines conflating those two judgments, because it’s very common all throughout Christianity for people to see one judgment. The Great White Throne Judgment is where Christ decides whether you’re going to heaven or hell is the way it’s seen, and most people are not aware of or don’t have a good understanding of the Judgment Seat of Christ or the Bema judgment. 

BOB: Yeah, I don’t recall in this chapter a single reference to the Judgment Seat of Christ or the Bema. It may well be that he believes there’s one final judgment, and that believers and unbelievers will be judged together. However, that’s not totally common within Southern Baptist circles. There are some Southern Baptists who believe in the Judgment Seat of Christ, and maybe Jerry Vines was one of those. 

But I would say, and when I say this, let me explain, don’t just immediately write off what I’m saying. I’m going to suggest Jesus never once taught about hell. And the reason for that is the word hell doesn’t occur anywhere in the older New Testament. Now, we have a translation that is hell. But in the New King James, for example, sometimes the Greek word Hades is simply brought over in English as Hades. And in the Old Testament, the term Sheol appears, and sometimes it’s called Sheol, sometimes the place of the dead, sometimes it might be translated hell. But it just refers to the place of the dead. 

And I think it’s important for us to recognize that Jesus never really spoke about hell, if by hell you mean the lake of fire. He might have spoken of the lake of fire when he talked about Gehenna. We’ll get to that in a minute. He probably was alluding to the lake of fire when He talked about perishing in John 3:16 or when He talked about Matthew 7:21-23. But basically what He says is, like for example, the word Hades, He only uses that expression three times and they’re all in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the synoptic gospels. So there’s only three times that Hades appears.

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BOB: The other word is the word Gehenna, which occurs eight times in the synoptics. Now Hades was the place of the dead. And in Luke 16, verses 19 to 31, the word Hades appears. And this is where, there was a rich man and a poor man. We’re not told the rich man’s name, but the poor man’s name was Lazarus. And Lazarus would beg from the rich man. And eventually they both died and they both went to Hades. It wasn’t that the rich man went to hell and the poor man went to heaven. They both went to Hades. Of course, we don’t want to translate that they both went to hell because one of them was in paradise. So you have to say, well, okay, the translators translated Hades, which I think is appropriate. 

But we find that the one man says, I’m in torment in these flames. And the other man, Lazarus, he’s reclining at Abraham’s bosom. And he’s not experiencing any torment. In fact, the rich man wants Lazarus to dip his finger in water and give him some relief.

SAM: Right. And this is where we get our understanding that Old Testament saints, when they died, did not immediately go to be with the Lord. They went to the air-conditioned part of shield of Hades known as Abraham’s bosom. But and that’s also why it’s important to draw this distinction because in English, when people talk about hell, they’re almost exclusively talking about a permanent eternal residence for unbelievers. But what you’re saying is when Christ talked about it when he referred to Hades, and most of the time when he referred to Gehenna, he was talking about the temporary dwelling place of the dead, not the eternal residence of unbelievers. 

BOB: Exactly. Let me just make a quick comment about basically what Jerry Vines suggested is that Jesus taught more about Hades than anybody else in the Bible. Well, John spoke about Hades four times in the book of Revelation. Jesus only spoke about it three times in three separate books. So John spoke about it more than the Lord Jesus did. And Sheol, or in the Septuagint I believe it’s translated as Hades, is referred to seven times in Proverbs, five times in Ezekiel, and three times in Psalms. So I don’t think it’s accurate to say that Jesus said more about Hades than the rest of the Bible put together. 

Now let’s think about Gehenna. It is true that Jesus said far more about Gehenna than any other author. Jesus used this expression Gehenna eight times, and only one other author in the Old or New Testament uses the term Gehenna, and that is James in James 3:6. However, the Old Testament does have an expression, the Valley of Hinnom. And it’s considered by, and that occurs three times in the Septuagint. And some people say that this valley outside of Jerusalem was where they perpetually burn trash. So they say that Gehenna illustrates the lake of fire or Gehenna illustrates the bad part of Hades, but other people say no, actually, the Valley of Hinnom is where some of the kings of Israel practiced child sacrifice, and they sacrificed their children. So it was a place of abomination because of what they had done there. 

Either way, some people say that Gehenna refers to a fiery judgment here and now. It doesn’t refer to, as you mentioned earlier, that it may have nothing to do with life after death. It has to do with judgment in this life. So I think it’s important that we recognize that Jesus, in His evangelistic ministry did not emphasize Hades. He did not emphasize Gehenna. In fact, how many times Sam do you think Gehenna appears in John’s Gospel? 

SAM: I don’t think it appears at all. 

BOB: It doesn’t and Hades doesn’t appear in John’s Gospel either. And the lake of fire doesn’t appear in John’s Gospel either. And so one of the things that Vines should have mentioned is that nowhere in Jesus’ evangelistic ministry does He mention hell. He never says the one who does not believe in Me is going to be tormented forever. He doesn’t say the one who does not believe in Me is going to suffer forever. Now, some people will say, well, look in the synoptics. Yes, but the synoptics are not evangelistic books. John 20:31 tells us that John’s Gospel is evangelistic. 

And those who say you can’t clearly evangelize without telling people about hell, ultimately are saying Jesus wasn’t clear in His own evangelism. And that we shouldn’t follow Jesus, we should follow somebody else. Of course, the apostles don’t preach hell in their evangelism either. But that’s a separate story. When Paul is asked what must I do to be saved, he says, believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. He doesn’t mention Gehenna or Hades or the lake of fire or anything else. 

So I think it’s important to recognize that. I understand that a lot of people think that hellfire evangelism is the way to go. Well, that may seem right to us, but that’s not what the Lord Jesus Christ did. And if he didn’t do that, I don’t think we should either. I think what we should do is tell people that those who believe in Him are never going to be condemned. They’re never being eternally condemned, but that they have everlasting life. That’s the message we get over and over and over again in John’s Gospel. 

Well, thanks you all so much for listening, and I hope you will study these issues for yourself and remember to keep grace in focus. 

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On our next episode: can the spiritually dead respond to Christ? Come back and join us, and in the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus.