3-Ring Binder: What Jesus Said About Hell Was Not Very Progressive (Even If He Didn't Say What You Might Think)

It amazes me how often non-Christians and liberal/progressive Christians appeal to Matthew 25:31-46, where Jesus talks about doing kindness to others being kindness to Him, in order to show that what matters to Jesus is generically being a good person because He is loving and not a mean, backwards religious fundamentalist.

Aside from particulars of who is in view in the passage (e.g. who are Jesus's "brothers"?), Verses 41 and 46 are explicitly about Jesus sending people into hellfire...

Compared to those who quote snippets of Jesus in order to shame people who say other things that Jesus said, I have much more intellectual respect for the likes of Bertrand Russell and other unbelievers who denied the faith because they took Jesus seriously:

There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Christ certainly as depicted in the Gospels did believe in everlasting punishment, and one does find repeatedly a vindictive fury against those people who would not listen to His preaching—an attitude which is not uncommon with preachers, but which does somewhat detract from superlative excellence (Russell).

"Don't You Also Not Believe in Eternal Conscious Hell?"

Of course, as many of you reading likely know, not only do I think that Bertrand Russell was wrong in general about Christianity, I also think that Bertrand Russell was incorrect in his belief about what Jesus taught about hell.

Nevertheless, I do appreciate that He didn't try to turn Jesus into something Jesus is not. Although re-reading the Gospels (and Bible in general) may cause some professing conservative Christians to change their minds and actions at times, Jesus is not this subverter of all things considered historical Christian belief. That is a picture that many unbelievers and very liberal professing believers paint, but not a picture that stands up to scrutiny against what Jesus says and does in the Gospels. And unless you are a Muslim who gets your ideas about Jesus from the Qur'an, where does anyone get any idea about what Jesus taught or believed except in the Gospels?

Now, regarding my beliefs about what Jesus (and the Bible) taught, I am an evangelical conditionalist. I believe that the Bible, and therefore Jesus, taught that hell is not a place of eternal conscious suffering for the unsaved. Rather, I believe that hell is a place of destruction and true, literal death. The only people who will live forever in any sense are the children of God.

Whether or not evangelical conditionalism (also called annihilationism) is true is not the focus here, so I will provide a number of links at the bottom with more on my beliefs about what the Bible really says about hell.

Jesus: One Very Fire-and-Brimstone Preacher

Despite not believing in eternal conscious hell, I find myself in agreement with many of those who hold the traditional view of hell on the broader point that Jesus was pretty fire and brimstone by today's standards. He spoke of damnation on several occasions in the Gospels. He didn't speak about it more than heaven, at least not by most ways of reckoning, but He did say things that many non-Christians and lukewarm professing Christians would be surprised to hear from Him. After all, Jesus is supposed to be the nice one, the loving one, not like those Christians who teach hateful, unloving things.

Even among pretty serious Christians, I do sometimes see a tendency to downplay the idea of Jesus being a condemning judge of any sort. Sometimes they even lament those Christians who rejoice in the idea of God condemning the wicked. They say that that is not the kind of God that God shows Himself to be in Jesus.

And yet, it kind of is.

As noted before, Matthew 25:41-46 literally has Jesus - not even God in the Old Testament, but Jesus in the flesh - sending sinners into "eternal fire" and "eternal punishment." Damnation isn't a passive consequence that just sorta happens to the unsaved apart from God's will and action. It happens at the word of the Lord.

And if a good number of devout, practicing Christians seem to distance Jesus from fire and vengeance, it is no wonder that many non-Christians do.

This is why I find Matthew 25:41-46 such a compelling place to start. The earlier parts of that scene, where Jesus lauds those who helped the people He identifies as "my brothers" (verse 40) for their kindness, are often cited by unbelievers and by professing believers who are, at best, very progressive in their approach to scripture. They cite that section, before Verse 41, in a number of contexts, though quite often it is used to chastise anyone who is more conservative then the person using it (whether politically or theologically). And yet, Jesus Himself follows those statements up with statements that many who quoted Him a few verses earlier would consider hateful and backwards and immoral if said by anyone else.

Anytime anyone quotes from Matthew 25:31-40 to make a progressive point, ask them what they think about Verses 41 and 46 and see where that discussion goes.

Of course, in addition to passages outside the Gospels that refer to Jesus as an avenger and one who brings wrath and fury (like 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10), there are also passages that quote Jesus in the Gospels which further speak of damnation in a way that affirms it, rather than subverting it. Here are a few examples:

Mark 9:47-48

In this passage, Jesus warns His followers to avoid sin with very graphic imagery:

If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be cast into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.

There's really just no good way to soften the image of being cast into a place of fire and worms.

And while most believers throughout time have not actually cut out eyes or amputated other body parts to avoid sin - since doing so would not actually keep you from sinning - the point is made and understood that if it comes to it, it is better to be harmed greatly and take extraordinary action than it is to end up in hell.

Matthew 13:24-30, 13:37-43

In Matthew 13:24-30, Jesus tells a parable about a farmer who has a bad weed problem due to sabotage. But the farmer tells his workers not to pull the weeds until they have grown so that they can be distinguished from the wheat he is also growing. The wheat is then harvested and the weeds are burned up.

Jesus did not simply leave us with that parable, however. The Gospel of Matthew also records Jesus giving the following explanation to His disciples:

He answered, “The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels.
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Whoever has ears, let them hear" (Matthew 13:37-43).

This isn't people sending themselves to hell because they wanted to be separated from God anyway. It is Jesus who sends His angels out to cast the wicked into the fiery furnace (and that is not my interpretation of the parable, but Jesus's own explanation of its meaning).

An Aside About the Word "Hell"

The word "hell" is, of course, an English word. The Bible was written before there was an English language, so the Bible never actually uses the word "hell." Rather, it is a word used by translators of the Old and New Testaments, but mostly in the New Testament, and usually just for one Greek word, Gehenna. The term Gehenna literally refers the valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem, but it is generally accepted that at least some of Jesus's uses had a metaphorical meaning, given their context. The literal valley of Hinnom did not have "eternal fire" in it, for example (in reference to Matthew 18:8).

Of the uses of Gehenna in the Bible, 11 out of 12 were spoken by Jesus. While other New Testament authors do talk about God's wrath and judgment, and therefore hell as a general concept, it is from Jesus of all people that most of the Bible's talk of "hell" comes from.

Far be it, then, for it to be something that He shied away from!

Why Don't I Believe These Sayings Prove Eternal Conscious Hell?

Now, why do I not think that the above is proof that hell is eternal torment? Well, the lightning round response would be:

- The phrase "eternal fire" (from Matthew 18:8 and 25:41) is used in the Bible and outside of it to describe a fire that burns things up and is, in some uses, not actually burning for eternity.

- True and permanent death, what many refer to as annihilation, is rightfully called "eternal punishment." It is a punishment, and it lasts for eternity.

- Mark 9:48 is quoting Isaiah 66:24, describing worms and fire consuming corpses.

- Comparing the wicked to weeds that quickly burn to ash is hardly a challenge to the view that the fire of hell destroys and kills.

- Other passages that mention "hell" or "hellfire," without further elaboration, do not tell us what happens in hell (e.g. Matthew 5:29-30).

None of the above changes the fact that Jesus is pretty fire and brimstone when push comes to shove. Jesus is the one still telling us that apart from salvation in Him, He will judge us for our sins and send us to a raging fire. It's just that it is not a fire of eternal torment but a fire that does what fire normally does to living creatures.

The Light At The End of The Tunnel

Now, the good news in all of this is, of course, that the same Jesus who warns of hell and who will judge the wicked also died for the wicked so that they could be forgiven. For the sake of brevity, I will link a good breakdown of this here: https://www.cru.org/us/en/how-to-know-god/would-you-like-to-know-god-personally.html

If you trust in Jesus, if you believe that He died for your sins and rose again, you won't have to fear the fiery furnace. Even though, if I am right, hell is not a place of eternal torture like many have heard, you won't have to fear the true death and destruction it brings if you trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Eternal life, with God, in heaven where there is no pain or sorrow but only love and joy and good things? That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.

Conclusion

To recap, the real Jesus of the scriptures is not the subversion of traditional Christianity that many paint Him as, and the topic of hell is no exception (my belief in annihilationism not withstanding). He talked openly about hell and the fiery destruction that sin deserves.

Of course, as Christianity of all stripes also affirms, Jesus also reminds us that He is the way to eternal life (John 3:16), a savior whose yoke is easy and whose burden is light (Matthew 11:28-30).

Works Cited

Unless otherwise noted, all scripture is quoted from the New American Standard Bible (NASB).

1960,1962,1963,1968,1971,1972,1973,1975,1977,1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by

permission.

- Bertrand Russell. 'Why I Am Not A Christian." South London Branch of the National Secular Society, Sunday March 6, 1927, Battersea Town Hall, London, UK. Speech. Drew.edu. Web. 30 Sep 2020. <https://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html>