Dr Greg Bahnsen - Sober News about Hell: Unending Punishment (Matthew 25:31-46) (Part 3)

Our Scripture reading this morning is taken from the 25th chapter of Matthew, where I'd like to read verses 31 through 46. We come this morning to our third installment of the series on hell, and our theme will be unending punishment, Matthew 25, beginning at verse 31. But when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit on the throne of his glory, and before him shall be gathered all the nations, and he shall separate them one from another as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats, and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, come ye, blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty, and you gave me drink. I was a stranger, and you took me in naked, and ye clothed me. I was sick, and ye visited me. I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, lord, when saw we thee hungry and fed thee, or athirst and gave thee drink? And when saw we thee a stranger and took thee in, or naked and clothed thee? And when saw we thee sick or in prison, and came unto thee? And the king shall answer and say unto them, verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it unto one of these my brethren, even these least ye did it unto me. Then shall he say also unto them, on the left hand, depart from me, ye cursed, into the eternal fire which is prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you did not give me to eat. I was thirsty, and you did me and gave me no drink. I was a stranger, and ye took me not in naked, and ye clothed me not sick and in prison, and ye visited me not. Then shall they also answer, saying, lord, when saw we thee hungry or athirst, or a stranger, or naked or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee, then shall he answer them, saying, verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of these least, ye did it not unto me. And these shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. And thus far the reading of God's word in our first message having to do with hell, I taught you from God's word that there will be a day of universal judgment before God. And those who, because of their unrepentant sin have suffered the torment of Saul in Hades, will on that day be resurrected to be judged out of the books that God will open so as to expose their wickedness. And they will be cast, the Bible says, into the lake of fire where the suffering does not end. That is a recurring biblical picture of the destiny of the damned. Last week, in our second installment, we learned that Scripture speaks often of God's anger and and judgment. And indeed, the most frequent topic in the teaching of Jesus was that of hell. Using metaphorical language, the Bible graphically depicts a place of ultimate pain and ultimate shame where unrepentant sinners are banished from the blessed presence of God. And today we want to ask the question, how long will that last? If you've paid attention, in a sense, you don't need this message. So maybe you just want to go ahead and fall asleep or think about other things, because the answer to this question has already been given. But because in our day and age, we have people who are promoting the idea that the notion of conscious torment, which is unending, is somehow unfitting for God or not really taught in the Bible, it's necessary for us to focus our attention specifically on this question. How long will the punishment be? And as you know from the title of the message in your bulletin, I'm going to argue that the Bible teaches that it is unending. How long will the punishment of hell last for unrepentant sinners? Well, let's remember this. In the Bible, one of the most distinctive things, one of the most honorable features about God that is presented to us is his holy character. The God that we read of in the Bible never lashes out, an emotional exaggeration. That means he's not like you at all. God never goes overboard. God always has a perfect sense of balance. He knows exactly what's right. God never exaggerates and likewise never falls short of doing what is entirely appropriate. To put it in theological or ethical terminology, God is characterized by perfect justice. Justice. You'll notice that if you look at Hebrews 2:2. So please open your Bibles and follow along with me in Hebrews 2. 2. Here the author says, for if the word spoken through angels prove steadfast. Now listen. And every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? You see what has taught us about the character of God here? Every transgression, every offense receives what? A just recompense of reward. It's entirely appropriate. It's exactly balanced in proportion to what it should be. It's never too lenient never too harsh, but it's just. It's a recompense that's appropriate. That's the way God is in the Old Testament. The expression that has been so much maligned and misunderstood among secular writers in our day, the expression we find is that God punishes an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a burn for a burn, a breaking for a breaking, etc. Now, what is that poetic metaphor supposed to express to us? Well, this very idea that God punishes exactly in the way that a crime calls for. God never asks for a leg in place of an eye. It's always an eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, whatever it may be. And I don't read that as a literal matter. I see that as a metaphorical, a poetic way of God saying that the punishment must match the offense. And that is in contrast to all of the cultures round about Israel in that day. People today say eye for eye is bloodthirsty. Well, they don't realize that if you read the code of Hammurabi and others at the same general time, what would happen is if a man stole all a loaf of bread, he could be executed. You might maim a man, you might cut off his hand for hitting somebody else, whatever. The idea of punishment had no proportion to it. And so God says, I only punish in the way that is right. In the Bible, God is presented as a God of holiness and justice. And although I really kind of cringe at using this modern expression, he is a God who is fair. I don't like that, because everybody's like, that's not fair, you know, and fair means not favorable to my desires. But if you understand what fair meant originally, it is true. God is entirely fair because there's a sense of proportion to what he does. And that's why in Romans 2, verses 5 and 6, you'll see that God punishes according to a person's works. According to, he doesn't give more than is deserved, he doesn't give less than is deserved. It's always according to. It's always balanced out. It's exactly right. Now, knowing this about God, then, this sense of justice, proportionality, fairness, even if you want to use that expression, then I want to ask you, what method should we follow as we think about how long the punishment of hell will be? And there's only two possibilities. Ultimately, it all boils down to this. Whatever the scholarly jargon is and all the rest that you may read, let me give you the bottom line. There's only two ways of Seeing this one, you can take our human assessment of sin, remembering of course, that as humans we are finite, we are limited, we are flawed. And above all remembering that as humans we always evaluate things in a way that pertains to its effect on us and therefore in good and bad ways, we're self serving in our evaluations of things. Remembering that we're finite, we're flawed and we're self serving. Shall we take our assessment of sin and then determine for ourselves what is fair and just? That as we look at, oh, let's just take gossip, let's say that you had the opportunity, perfect opportunity, someone set you up perfectly to make a cutting remark behind somebody's back and you did it. Now, how do we look at that? Honestly, how do you feel about that right now? I know how I feel about it and I know where I'm going with this thought. I look at that and I say, yeah, it's not very nice, but you know, it's not the biggest sin in the world, is it? See, we tend to look at things, probably because we all have done that, we tend to look at that as well. Yeah, it's not the greatest, that's not perfect. But don't want to make too much of it, do we? So now, should that be our method? Should we say, well, here's how we look at sin and we'll determine, given our assessment, what the length of punishment should be for it. That's one way of doing it. The other way, the only other alternative, it seems to me, is to look at what the righteous judge of all the earth will impose as the penalty for sin, and from that penalty for sin infer how serious it must be. Everyone's got to choose one of those paths. You're either going to say, I know what sin deserves and therefore I'll tell you how long hell should be, or you're going to say, the Bible's going to teach me what penalty God's going to impose and that will then infer what he thinks sin is like how serious it is to him. The Bible tells us that sin is even that little gossip, even that cutting remark behind a person's back. After all, the person may not even have been your friend. That cutting remark, the smallest of sins, is an attack upon the infinite holiness of God. The Bible says God is so holy that he cannot even look upon sin. We're so jaded by sin, we're so accustomed to it, we're so used to making excuses for our own that we look upon sin all the time. And does it offend us? No, in many cases it entertains us. But God can't look at it. He detests it. It's a stench in his nostrils. And you may think it's a small matter, but God says through him it violates everything that's good and decent and hol and righteous about his own character. Sin is an attack on the infinite holiness of God. And the magnitude of the punishment for attacking his infinite holiness must then match the magnitude of the offense. Maybe this will help you. In America it's difficult even to make this point, but there's a certain, I think, experience of this that you can relate to. If you lived in another kind of culture that was more highly structured or more ancient culture, this would especially speak to you. But I think even in America we can understand this. You know that the penalty for doing something against somebody else is often adjusted to the dignity and level of the person that you have offended. Most of us would think that if we, if we do something against the small child, I mean, unless it's molestation or some horrendous thing, let's say you spoke an unkind word to a child. We would say that's not right. But we'd also realize that speaking an unkind word to a child, maybe somebody you don't even know, is not at all the same as speaking an unkind word to your mother. Let's say in the case where you have maybe a faithful mother and a godly mother and someone who has been self sacrificial and then you speak back to her like that. I mean, though it's wrong to speak to an unknown child that way, obviously it's much worse to speak to your mother, right? I say that because it's Mother's Day and maybe you'll understand this. We know in the civil domain it's one thing to attack a citizen, another thing to attack a policeman, and it's even far worse to attack the President of the United States. We adjust the penalty accordingly. That isn't to say it's all right for anybody to speak against the child or to attack their neighbor. But you all understand this notion of the offense is even greater when you're dealing with a person of higher dignity. Well, God has the highest dignity. God owns everything. God controls everything. His holy character is so pure that he can't even look upon sin. And so what is the appropriate penalty for an attack on a person of the highest dignity, the highest purity, the highest authority? And the biblical answer is only the highest penalty, only an Infinite penalty is proportionate to an offense against the infinite holiness of God. You see what I'm getting at? You can't start with the offense and give your evaluation and then say, well, it seems to me hell shouldn't be forever, because, well, I mean, look, that's bad, but it isn't terrible. You must rather say, what will God do to people who act like this? What will God do to people with attitudes like this? And from that draw your conclusion about how serious a matter it is in the teaching of Jesus. We have it a couple of places. An interesting analogy. I believe it's intended by Jesus to be an analogy for hell. You'll find it in Matthew 5, 26. Also in Luke 12:59, Jesus in Matthew 5 has spoken about a hardened heart, an insensitive heart that prevents you from confessing your sins one to another and seeking reconciliation. Jesus, having said that when we speak against one another, we can be in danger of Gehenna. Hellfire in verse 22, then goes on to teach that if you will not be reconciled to your brother, you will not be reconciled to God. And he finishes this thought out with the notion of being cast into prison. In verse 26, it says, and you shall by no means come out of there until you have paid the last penny. It is possible that that is simply an earthly metaphor. But remember, that's what people who get angry with you may do. They're going to force you to come up with every single cent before you get out of prison. But because he's just talked about being cast into Gehenna, and the whole point about getting right with somebody is you better seek reconciliation, because if you don't have that heart, you won't be reconciled with God. I think it's appropriate to draw the conclusion that Jesus says that Gehenna is such that you won't get out until you pay the last penalty. And what does that idiom mean? It means never, because you know when you're in prison, you can't earn the money to pay off your debt. That's the tragedy of it. So when Jesus says, if you're not reconciled to God in this case because you're not reconciled to your fellow man, if you're cast into the judgment of Gehenna, help. Fire. You're never getting out. It's not going to end. It's probably good to remember that when people are punished, it does not produce heartfelt repentance. It certainly does not produce it in the wicked. I'm glad to report I hesitate to use my Family as an illustration, they always kind of squirm when I do this. But I do know that in the case of those that, that have changed hearts, that are made right with God, punishment does sometimes bring repentance. Now we're always a bit suspicious, of course. If I punish one of my children for doing something and then later I get an apology, it's kind of like, is this an apology because they don't like the punishment that is imposed? Or is this an apology because of heartfelt shame and they know that it was wrong? And I think when you have Christian children, when you have Christian friends and others that you deal with, you sometimes do get apologies later which are genuine. And the punishment did kind of kick it into gear. But in the case of those that have hardened hearts, in the case of the wicked, the unregenerate punishment does not produce repentance. You know what it produces? Resentment. It produces anger, gnashing of the teeth. It produces self centered rationalizations. It produces cries of this nut fair. So what's going to happen in hell to those who are being punished? The biblical picture is picture of people that are pathetically rationalizing what they've done and blaming God, not accepting their guilt or the necessity of their punishment. Which is if I'm right in this, that is to say that in hell the wicked under the punishing hand of God will only exacerbate their guilt day by day and minute by minute, by not ever coming to their senses, but gnashing their teeth and being angry and making excuses and blaming God. In which case justice would, even from a human standpoint, you have to understand, justice would require that the punishment go on forever and ever. They never will pay the last penny because they don't want to pay anything. Here's what Jesus said in John 3:36. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for the wrath of God remains on him. That verb remains is very important. It means to continue and abides. The wrath of God continues on the one who will never see life because he has rejected the Son. And so what is the length of time that sinners will spend in hell? What is the duration of that punishment that will be imposed upon the damned? Without even looking at specific texts that will answer it, it seems to me from general common sense and our knowledge of Scripture, we should be able to answer, it will be unending. The infinite holiness of God has been offended and an infinite penalty must be imposed. But I wouldn't want you to think that any of us should be willing to take analogies and common sense and a general knowledge of Scripture as a way of deciding a theological point. I hope I've led you to understand what I'm now going to teach you, but let's just go through a few texts about eight, I think here, where the Bible explicitly, directly, categorically, it clearly answers the question, how long will the punishment be? Daniel 12, 2 Daniel 12, the prophet tells us, and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting. You notice the parallel between the everlasting life and the everlasting contempt. How long will the punishment of God rest upon those who reject His Son, who are under his wrath? It will be everlasting. It will last forever. It will never go away. It will be endless, unending, infinite, just as infinite as the life that is granted to those who are right with him. And notice Mark 9:48. Now in the New Testament, Mark 9:48, Jesus speaking of hell, the last verse of verse 47, Gehenna, he says, where their worm never dies and the fire is not quenched. Unquenchable fire and undying worm. If they teach anything, though it is a metaphor, if they teach anything, certainly teach that the punishment will never go away. The fire can't be quenched. The worm keeps eating and eating and eating. Now some people will say, of course, forgetting the difference between it being metaphorical in the place from which the illustration is taken and that to which it is applied, will say, well, when you throw garbage out and the worms eat it, eventually it's consumed. Well, that's true, but in this case God's going to make a body that will not be consumed. Just like he had a bush once in the Old Testament that was a fire, but it was not consumed. God will give a body to those who suffer such that though given the metaphor, it's like worms eating away, they will never be finished. Undying worm, unquenchable fire. Matthew 18:8. And if thy hand or thy foot. Foot causeth thee to stumble, cut it off and cast it from thee. It is good for thee to enter into life maimed or halt, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the eternal fire. Likewise look at Jude the seventh verse, even as Sodom and Gomorrah, and the cities about them, having in like manner with these, given themselves over to fornication, and gone after strange flesh, are set forth as an example, suffering the punishment of eternal fire. In the book of Jude, jump down to verse 13. Wild waves of the sea foaming out their own shame, wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness hath been reserved forever. What does the Bible say? The contempt will be everlasting, the fire unquenchable, the worm undying. The fire will be eternal. The darkness will be forever. Revelation 14:11. And the smoke of their torment goeth up forever and ever. And they have no rest day and night, they that worship the beast in his image. And whoever receives the mark of his name, no rest day and night, because the smoke goes up forever and ever. In 2 Thessalonians 1:9 how long will the destroying forces of hell work upon the bodies and souls of the damned? 2nd Thessalonians 1 and the 9th verse who shall see suffer punishment, even eternal destruction, from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might. And one more passage again of those that just speak directly to our question. Revelation 20:10 and the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where are also the beast and the false prophet, Remember? And this is the place where God will cast the damned into the lake of fire, and they shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever. Now here's an interesting thing. The very same Greek words that are used for forever and ever eternal, everlasting. The very same Greek word words which are used for the eternality of God, the very same Greek words that are used over 60 times in the Bible to describe the future blessedness of the righteous are exactly the terms that are used in those texts we've just read. Those terms are used to describe the longevity of hell's penalty torment. And they're the same terms that describe how long God lives and how long the blessedness of the righteous will be. These terms might indeed connote more than a simple quantitative notion of being everlasting. That is, they may say more than unending. Some people have suggested that the term eternal pertains to that which is divine or spiritual, spiritually transcendent in quality. And that's fine. The terms may mean more than quantitatively unending. The point is, they certainly do not mean less. And over and over and over again, God says it will never end forever and ever. J.I. packer has put it very well, I think, when he said the insistence of Scripture that the fire, punishment and destruction are eternal would be pointless and inappropriate if all that is envisaged is momentary extinction, just as it would be pointless and inappropriate to dwell on unending pain resulting from an immediately fatal bullet wound. Either these words indicate the endlessness of torment or they are superfluous and misleading. Now, some people have said, but wait a minute, maybe what's unending is not the torment, not the punishing, if you will. What's unending is simply the effects of the punishment, the effects of the burning. It's not that God is giving us a metaphor of torment that goes on and on and on. It's rather he gives us an indication that the effect of his punishment, which is extinction, will never be reversed. That is to say, God is only speaking of the completed and irreversible state of things after he has destroyed the wicked. And some have even thought, I mean, to be very honest with you, someone interested in logic and debate and that sort of thing, you sometimes run across embarrassingly bad arguments. And here's one of them. Some have even suggested that that's why it's the smoke that goes up forever and ever. They'll say, notice it's the smoke, not the burning, that goes forever and ever. Well, I mean, I think most of you who've ever burned a pile of leaves or have seen a house go up, you realize that, yes, the smoke continues after the flames are out, but it doesn't go on and on and on continuously. Eventually, when there's no fuel, the fire goes out and eventually the smoke dissipates too. So this doesn't strike me as a real good move for those who want to get rid of the eternality of punishment. And besides, even if that were more accurate to the physical metaphor of smoke, the truth of the matter is the Bible says the fire is unquenchable. In Matthew 25:41 in our scripture reading, you notice Jesus called it eternal fire. Not just unquenchable, unquenchable, but goes on and on and on. And so then you have a theologian like Clark Pinnock read his desired conclusion into the verse without any warrant whatsoever by adding a restrictive qualifying explanation. Pennock says the fire will never be quenched. No, he says the fire will be quenched only when the job is finished. To say it's unquenchable is to say that it will not go out until it's done its job. And when the wicked have been consumed, burned up completely, it's done its job. So that's why it's unquenchable. Eternal fire. Well, the difficulty is we're trying to determine from the text how long the penalty of hell will be. When will the job be finished? Is the question we want to ask. Right. When will the job be finished? Rather than letting the text answer our question, what Pennock does is he brings his preconceived answer and uses it to interpret the text. To put it another way, he doesn't take out of the text his answer. He reads it into the text and then reads it and says, well, there's what God is saying. That qualification is utterly unwarranted by context, by semantics. There is nothing about the fire going out until the job is done. The plain and the obvious application made by Scripture itself is that those who are in hell, this is Revelation 14:11, that speaks of the smoke going up forever and ever. Those who are in hell have no rest day and night. This is conscious. This is unrelieved pain and shame. Likewise, when the Bible tells us of endless torment in Revelation 20, verse 10, obviously it must be a conscious experience of utter pain, which is going on day and night, forever and ever. As Revelation 20:10 says, they are tormented day and night, forever and ever. But torment is not torment if you're not conscious. That's why I could take open heart surgery, no problem. Why? Because I was out like a light. I didn't feel anything until I woke up. And even then they gave me morphine so I wouldn't feel what I really would have felt. The point is, if you don't consciously undergo the pain, it's not punishment at all. And that torment will be forever and ever. It's not simply the completed effect of having suffered and then being annihilated. The Bible says those who are in this torment in hell will wail and gnash their teeth. You have someone like Edward Fudge who writes that the gnashing of the teeth will precede their final extinction, which is, to put it simply, totally gratuitous as to what the text says. There is no warrant, no basis, not the slightest bit of justification in the text for saying that this is before their extinction. They will suffer torment day and night, wailing and gnashing their teeth. I appreciate very much the words of the American Baptist theologian of some note, AH Strong, who said, if when used to describe the future punishment of the wicked, these words do not declare the endlessness of that punishment. There are no words in the Greek language which could express that meaning. That's very well put. I'm going to put something of an analytical, philosophical twist on that remark. I'm going to add to it just a bit. Not only is it correct that there's no way in the Greek language to say it if this isn't the way of saying it, but what this really amounts to is that those who resist the biblical teaching. Those who try to find clever ways around it have got to realize that if these clear, repeated statements are not sufficient to communicate endless suffering, such people are really maintaining the position in advance that no language will be allowed to say that. See, it's not just we think you're wrong in reading it this way. What they're saying is there will be absolutely no way we will ever acknowledge that that could be said in the Bible. Because the point, the comeback to these people is, well, imagine, even though we're wrong, allegedly imagine we're wrong. But how would you say that? How would you express that mistaken view? And the point is, they're going to come up with exactly what's in the Bible. That is the way to say it in the Greek language. Forever and ever, day and night, without end, eternally. Those are the terms that are used. And you know, the contrasting parallelism in Matthew 25:46, which is why we read that this morning really cannot be evaded. So let's look at that as we close this morning. Matthew 25:46, Jesus says, and these shall go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. You have eternal punishment contrasted to eternal life. Now, we've already seen that the punishment which will be the destiny of the damned is not destruction in the sense of extinction. It's rather conscious torment, wailing, gnashing of teeth. A punishment that is not felt is not a punishment, as we've said, and Jesus said, it is punishment that they're going into. They will go away to punishment that is eternal. And the length of that torment called punishment, not destruction, not annihilation, not extinction. But the length of that punishment must be identical to the length of the blessed life which will be enjoyed by those that Christ has saved. If there is no termination of that blessed life, which is what we understand by the word eternal life, if there is no termination to the blessed life, then it would be utterly fallacious, special pleading to say that the eternal punishment does, by contrast, have a termination. You have unterminated punishment set over against unterminated life. Or these words have no meaning at all. And so can we answer the question? I hope you can. I don't hope that you can answer the question with glee, with a sense of relish. I hope that you don't answer the question without a sense of awe and trembling. But last week, when I described for you the ultimacy of the pain and the ultimacy of the shame that hell represents, what I didn't lay on you as I Now am going to do, and this makes it utterly incredible, is that it will never ever, ever stop. You know how long eternity is? No, you don't, because you don't have anything in your experience that's like that. Everything in our experience ends. I'm talking about something that will never end. Think of Mount Everest. How huge that bulk of rock is. Imagine a bird flying by Mount Everest and just sharpening its beak once against the rock and that same bird or a bird similar to it returning 10 years later and just once sharpening its beak. How long would it take for a bird or birds coming by every 10 years and just once sliding their beak across the rock of Mount Everest? How long would it take for Mount Everest to be reduced to the level plane? I couldn't begin to tell you. I don't think we can count that high. But once you have got the answer to that question, you still have not gotten to eternity. Endlessness is beyond the grasp of our imagination. And that's what makes the thought of unending punishment in hell incredibly terrible. But there's good news too, because as I've just taught you, that's not just the length of punishment for the wicked. It's also the length of life that we will enjoy with God if we're under his saving care. You see, the endlessness of may make hell seem so terrible. But the endlessness likewise makes the prospect of unending life with God inconceivably wonderful. You see, I don't believe that the Bible teaches all this stuff about how dreadful hell is, just so people would sit there and basically wet their pants in fear. He wants us to know by contrast, that it's going to be just that good on the side. Other side, if we accept his offer of mercy and forgiveness. Who could be so foolish as not to accept? In Deuteronomy 30, God said, this day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you. That I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Now choose life that you may live. Let's pray. God, we do ask that you would strike us with solemnity and seriousness about the holy teaching of your Word. That the punishment that will become the destiny of the damned will never ever, ever end. And God may us make us so fearful of that and so desire us to taste the sweetness of life and forgiveness with you, that we would turn from it and embrace the Savior, Jesus Christ. God, help us to see how serious sin is. Don't let us listen to the world. Don't let us attune our attitude to what we see on the television and read in the paper, and what we see about us with those with whom we work and live. We know that sin is dreadfully serious to you, eternally serious. We ask that you'd help us to hate sin and to above all, hate our own sin. Help us to understand what it requires because of your justice, which is never extreme, never exaggerated. Help us to appreciate, Lord Jesus, therefore, what it is that you underwent when you allowed hell to be your experience, that we would not go there. God, give us cheerful hearts, not just fearful hearts, cheerful hearts to know that balancing the dreadfulness of hell will be the magnitude of joy that is ours in heaven. And we give you all the praise and glory because it is ours only by grace. In Jesus name, Amen.