Truth Magazine

By Harold Fite

Fire in the domestic realm is beneficial, By it we cook our meals and warm ourselves. Fire also destroys our possessions and our lives. Fire can inflict intense pain upon the human body; disfigure and destroy it. One has only to go to the burn center in Galveston, Texas to witness the horrible results of fire on flesh.

God frequently used fire to punish the disobedient. He rained brimstone and fire on Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:24). He brought hail mingled with fire upon the Egyptians (Exod. 9:23). By fire God destroyed two hundred fifty men who were in rebellion (Num. 16:35). God sent fire upon Nadab and Abihu to devour them because they acted without his authority (Lev. 10:2). Someday the heavens will be dissolved by fire and the elements shall melt with fervent heat (2 Pet. 3:12).

I have observed naming fire consuming industrial buildings and felt the scorching heat two blocks away. I have seen huge furnaces in which fire generated incredibly high temperatures. In both instances I thought, “This must be, in a small measure, what Hell is like.”

People fear fire, and respect it. Yell “fire!” in a crowded room and people panic and rush madly for the exits. In their hysteria some have crushed others to death fleeing from the searching and searing flames bent on engulfing them. Here we have a paradox: while people will flee from fire, millions are racing toward the fire of hell – actually inviting it!

Hell is a place of fire. The Scriptures describe hell as a “lake of fire” (Rev. 20:14) ; “furnace of fire” (Matt. 13:42); and “hell fire” (Matt. 18:9). It is into this fire that the ungodly will be cast. How terribly frightening to contemplate being thrown into a lake consumed by fire, or into a suffocating, searing furnace of fire. This is just a hint of what the fire of hell will be like.

Whatever the nature of that fire, God used the word that would best describe hell. If it is a metaphor it is a “likeness or similarity set forth as reality.” The punishment of fire is far worse than anything we have seen, heard, or imagined.

Fire produces pain. Those who go to hell will be tormented by fire. Jesus said, “There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:42). The rich man died and was buried, “and being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this flame.. (Lk. 16:23,24). He was in agony with no hope of relief.

The nature of this fire is “everlasting.” Jesus will ultimately say to those on his left hand, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41). Jude describes it as “eternal” (Jude 7).

Jesus warns us that if we place our members at the disposal of sinful desires we shall be cast into hell fire, “where the worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. For everyone shall be salted by fire” (Mk. 9:48,49). There are two destructive forces: the worm and fire. Both suggests to us the permanence of retribution. The worm dieth not, therefore the “gnawing anguish” never ceases. Those in hell are “salted with fire” (preserved), therefore, the results remain constant. “The smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; and they have no rest day or night” (Rev. 14:11). Just think, to be in constant agony forever, with no hope of escaping the horrors of hell.

“Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11).

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 19, p. 585
October 3, 1991

By Leon Odom

All Bible students familiar with the life of our Lord are cognizant of the fact that much of his personal teachings were involved in a confrontation with the Jews. The Jews always demonstrated that they had a real problem with their faith -both objectively and subjectively. In the times of the apostles they did not consider the gospel as a message directed to any Gentile, for to them the Gentile was despicable. However, Paul made the matter clear in Romans 1:16, declaring, “the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth; to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” Hence the Jews often received rebukes, from both the Lord and the apostles, for their supercilious attitude toward those who were not the descendants of Abraham. The Jews not only had a faith problem relative to the gospel, but also with regards to their “belief” (or maybe we should say with their unbelief). Much of our Lord’s teachings on Hell emanated from conflict with the Pharisees.

This will serve to lead us into the text of this study. Matthew 8:5-13 is the record of the healing of the centurion’s servant. Here it is:

And when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, pleading with him, saying, Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, terribly tormented. And Jesus said unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof. But only speak a word and my servant will be healed. For 1 also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, go, and he goes; and to another, come, and he comes; and to my servant, do this and he does it. When Jesus heard this he marveled, and said to those who followed, Assuredly, I say unto you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And I say to you, that many will come from the east and the west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Jesus marvels at the faith of the Gentile centurion. The only other reference where it is said that “Jesus marveled” is in Mark 6:6, where he marveled over the “unbelief” (lack of faith) of the Jews. “Sons of the kingdom” refers to the Jews, to whom the kingdom belonged by heritage, according to their thinking. The Gentiles are represented as those from the east and the west who come to him by faith.

The Lord is using a simile to get his message across. To the Jewish mind was always the association of the kingdom to a gala festivity. Picture such an event as in a great hall: being conducted at night the hall is ablaze with torches giving off a brilliant light. Those inside are in fellowship with the king and other loyal servants. The felicity of the occasion is indescribable. On the other hand, picture those on the outside looking in. They are in the absence of light. They are cast away into darkness.

This scribe finds it interesting to note that there are two darknesses contemplated in the Scriptures. We would simply put it, outside of the kingdom in the world of deluded, ignorant, lying and rebellious souls. From this darkness men can be saved and finally enjoy the bliss of eternal light (Rom. 1:16). The second darkness, which we would explore, is the “utterly outside” darkness from whence there is no escape and which will last throughout eternity; that is, never ending. This “outside darkness” is not to be viewed as merely the absence of light, life, and joy. We need to realize that it is a dreaded power that drags souls away from the light and holds them forever in its control.

When we begin to think of this “outer darkness” as a place, even as heaven is viewed as a place prepared for the faithful, it becomes more realistic. When the student of the Bible thinks of heaven, his heart should leap with joy and his expectation should run high. Heaven! A place prepared for those in fellowship with the Father. A place where we shall forever be in the benedictive presence of God. There we can walk through the Elysian fields of glory and live in the perpetual springtime of eternity with the redeemed of all the ages past. In that land that is fairer than day, we will eat of the fruit of the evergreen tree, and drink the waters of everlasting life. We will bask in the sunlight of God’s love and mingle our voices with the angels as they sing the song of Moses and the Lamb with the volume of a “mighty water-fall. ” There we shall gaze on the towering walls of jasper and the beautiful gates of pearl. And more importantly, we shall see our Savior as he is. No wonder John said, “Come Lord Jesus, come quickly.” What a day that will be when all of the faithful get home!

Hence when we contemplate such a gathering as that, then we can view the eternal punishment of the workers of iniquity with more appreciation for what Jesus said in our text. In the outer darkness we are shut out of the portals of heaven forever. Out of the presence of Deity! In the outer darkness of eternal night the misery is pictured as “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” In hell there is fire but no light; it is utter darkness,- darkness in extremity; the highest degree of darkness, without any remainder of semblance of hope for light. In hell there will be great grief and deep rivers of tears shed to no purpose. All of the anguish of spirit will be the order throughout ceaseless ages. The castaways will be conscious of the joys and delights of the heavenly host, and will be aware that there is between the two places a “great gulf fixed.” To emphasize it all, that misery will last forever and forever without end! Perish the thought of ever being cast into hell.

Neighbor friend, we can let that be only a place we read about and avoid. We need to strive to “walk in the light” of his word while here on earth so that we can revel in the “light of heaven’s eternity” when this pilgrim journey is ended.

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 19, pp. 584-585
October 3, 1991

By Charles N. Spence, Jr.

Nevertheless, because of sexual immorality, let each man his own wife, and let each woman have her own husband. Let the husband render unto his wife the affection her, and likewise also the wife to her husband. The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. And likewise the husband does not have authority his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one her except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of control” (1 Cor. 7:2-5).

The phrase “Justified Love” has become popularized by those who would condone sexual acts such as fornication, adultery and homosexuality. Many people believe that society could dictate what the morals should be at any given time. Their plea is, “You must go with the flow. ” They say since times have changed, the way society thinks should change. Their thinking is that the moral standard should reflect the prevalent attitude and behavior of society. Thus, the biblical view of sexuality becomes outdated and archaic. What the Bible deems as sinful sexual practices, society views as common and acceptable, therefore, justified love. The idea that the biblical view on sex should be interpreted in keeping with the moral standards of society has some startling consequences.

“There Is Nothing New Under The Sun”

Solomon once said, “The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. Is there anything whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us” (Eccl. 1:9-10). The immorality that man seeks to justify today is nothing new. In Leviticus 18, God gives the Israelites laws governing sexual practices. He commands them not to engage in adultery (v. 20) or homosexuality (v. 22). These practices, God says, were the practices of the Egyptians and the Canaanites (Lev. 18:3,27). The Israelites lived in the midst of a society where such sexual practices were common and acceptable, yet God did not tolerate such practices. Anyone who would be his would not be involved in such practices.

Paul also spoke of such practices that existed in his day. “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in there lust one to ward another,- men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error was meet” (Rom. 1:26-27). From the language of the text one can see that the sexual practices that were condemned by God 1500 years earlier, were still condemned by God. The sins have not changed nor has God’s attitude toward the sins. What is the difference in the sins today? They were just as acceptable and prevalent back then as they are today. One cannot justify such practices and still remain in God’s favor. God has, throughout mankind’s existence, separated his people from the rest of society. And today he still exhorts his people by saying, “Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins and that ye receive not her plagues” (Rev. 18:4).

The only “Justified Love” that is scripturally sanctioned is, “Let the husband render unto his wife the affection due her, and likewise the wife to her husband” (1 Cor. 7:3). There is no other way to practice safe sex.

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 18, p. 559
September 19, 1991

By Dan King

Those students of the Bible who have drunk deeply at the wells of modernism have been affected in most every area of their study. The conclusions which they draw are slanted away from any literal application of scriptural texts which touch upon such subjects as the miraculous, the unseen realm, angels and demons, inspirational and prophetical activities of God – in short, most every theme which makes the Bible a unique production of the Holy Spirit. The biblical doctrines of heaven and hell, found as they are in quite literal contexts, are not subject to any approach which would spiritualize them away. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have attempted this with hell, but do not use the same or comparable logic with heaven. The effect of modernism is to rationalize them away, seeing them in terms of ancient mythopoeic thought.

Modernists neutralize both biblical notions, describing them as part of the mythic world of the ancients. Believing, as they do, that the writers of the Bible lived in societies which were backward and pre-scientific in their perspective upon all aspects of life, they imbibed these viewpoints, even though they were filled with folklore, legend, and common myth. The result is that they produced a literature which was characterized by belief in such. The biblical books are representative of the larger body of that literature, differing from it only in that these works were the “survivors.”

Genesis and Creation Myth

It has long been held by liberal scholars that the creation narrative of Genesis chapters one and two is heavily dependent upon ancient Babylonian myth. In the middle of the last century archaeologists unearthed Assyrian copies of the old Babylonian creation and flood stories at Nineveh in the library of Ashurbanipal (669-633 B.C.), the last great king of the Assyrian empire. In 1876 George Smith, a young Assyriologist at the British museum, published his epoch-making book The Babylonian Account of Genesis, which recounted the Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma elish (named after its opening words: “When on high. . . “). At first liberal scholars were tempted to think that practically everything in the old Testament was borrowed from Babylon. Hugo Winckler became father to the theory called the “pan-Babylonian” view of biblical origins. His books Geschichte Israels (Vol. 1, 1895) and Das alte Westasien (1899) precipitated the “Bible vs. Babel” controversy, when Friedrich Delitzsch took his viewpoint to the ultimate extreme in Babel und Bibel (1902). Delitzsch attempted to show that there was nothing in the Old Testament that was not but a pale reflection of Babylonian ideas.

Hermann Gunkel, who authored Shopfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit (“Creation and Chaos in Beginning-time and End-time, ” 1895), was one of the first to assess this mythological tradition upon the Bible. From a “history of religions” viewpoint, Gunkel argued that the Babylonian creation myth concerning Marduk’s victorious combat against the dragon Tiamat and her chaotic allies had tremendous influence upon the writers of Scripture. And, although his approach has since been refined by subsequent scholars, Bernhard W. Anderson in his book Creation versus Chaos, still posits that the Babylonian story is at the root of the entire ancient near eastern tradition which became the source for the Bible narrative. All he adds, in terms of approach, is a discussion of the mythological texts from Ras Shamra (ancient Ugarit) dating from about 1400 B.C., wherein Baal, the storm god of old Canaan battles Yam the god of the sea, and Nahar the god of the River. He, like many other modern liberal scholars, sees Canaanite religion as the bridge through which these notions were mediated to ancient Israel.

Despite the fact that scholars have often demonstrated the glaring differences between the creation story as told in Genesis and that in the Babylonian epic, and how strained are the similarities, this position continues to be put forward as the correct one. K.A. Kitchen writes: “Assyriological scholarship has by now largely rejected the old idea that Genesis 1-2 had any close relation at all with Enuma elish. Such is essentially the verdict of Heidel, Kinnier-Wilson, Lambert, and Millard, for example. Writers on the Old Testament who suggest the contrary are out of date” (The Bible in its World 27).

Biblical Cosmology

Perhaps more to the point, the idea of cosmology as taught in the Bible has come under fire as one aspect of modernism’s assault on scriptural concepts. Heaven and hell are viewed as aspects of a “three-storied universe” which went out of vogue conceptually with the beginning of the scientific era. The old notion is seen as having been a part of the fabric of ancient thought about the world. One scholar articulates it this way:

By 3000 B.C., Sumerian culture in lower Mesopotamia had already worked out, it seems, a view of the universe which was to endure with only minor modifications for over 2000 years. The threefold division of the universe with which we are familiar from the Bible is found in Sumerian culture. Heaven, consisting of various regions, is the abode of the gods. The earth, conceived of as a disk, and the underworld complete the divisions of the universe. The primeval waters are located both above the vault of heaven and below the earth. The upper and lower seas (the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf) represent the limits of the earth. The vault of heaven rests upon the outermost bounds of the earth, thus enclosing man in an earth which is protected from destruction by the firm underside of heaven and by the under-earth mountains which support the disc-earth over the lower primeval waters. This cosmological picture is precisely that found in the Old Testament (Walter Harrelson, The Significance of Cosmology in the Ancient Near East 257; also in From Fertility Cult to Worship 2).

In order to make the Old Testament fit this scenario, modernist scholars must do two things. First, they find it necessary to literalize highly figurative expressions from the book of Psalms and elsewhere. Terms like “waters above the firmament” are taken for seas that existed above the sky, rather than the sources of rain in the clouds; “storehouses of snows,” “storehouses of hail,” and “chambers of the winds” are taken literally – even though we might ourselves use such language today in a figurative sense. “Waters under the earth” are viewed as underground rivers of the nether world, instead of the waters of the ocean (which are indeed below the land). Heaven and hell are seen as mere holdovers in this ancient way of seeing the universe. Modern scientific man should not take them seriously, for they are precritical in their origin.

The second thing many scholars do is to ignore the general tendency of the Old Testament to strike out beyond the mythic approach to the world as taken by Israel’s neighbors, and even to attack many of their ideas directly. In a most helpful chapter in the book Before Philosophy: The Intellectual Adventure of Ancient Man, called “The Emancipation of Thought From Myth” the authors (H. and H. A. Frankfort) suggest that Israel broke from the mythic traditions of the ancient world: “The God of the psalmists and the prophets was not in nature. He transcended nature and transcended, likewise, the realm of mythopoeic thought. It would seem that the Hebrews, no less than the Greeks, broke with the mode of speculation which had prevailed up to their time” (237).

Probably the most outrageous statement of this belief, as it applies to the New Testament, came from the pen of Rudolf Bultmann in his essay New Testament and Mythology: “The cosmology of the New Testament is essentially mythical in character. The world is viewed as a threestoried structure, with the earth in the center, the heaven above, and the underworld beneath . . . Supernatural forces intervene in the course of nature . . . Miracles are by no means rare.” Bultmann did not conceal his general skepticism, suggesting that the New Testament needed to be “demythologized” in order to be rescued from this prescientific thinking. Bultmann’s favorite teacher was the avowed atheist Heid.egger who applauded Bultmann for “making theology out of my philosophy” (quoted in Carl F.H. Henry, Frontiers in Modern Theology 19). Although much of his methodology has gone by the wayside as newer scholars and schools of thought have taken his place, yet there is still a skepticism on the part of the liberal scholars as to the existence of the unseen realm.

A Kinder, Gentler Doctrine

Finally, the liberal approach to heaven and hell have been affected by the tendency among liberal scholars to make Christian doctrine “nice” and “clean it up” so that it is more acceptable to the modern mind. Of course, the modern mind tends to be much more hostile to the notion of punishment, especially if it is considered harsh. In our own society it is the liberal who is ever worried over whether government will mete out some punishment which is considered “cruel and unusual” (i.e. the death penalty), and so contrary to the constitution. Beyond this, the liberal is concerned that we not punish the criminal at all. He is more interested in having a programme of rehabilitation rather than punishment. “Give the guy another chance . . . and another . . . and another.” Never mind the consequences for society generally or for the victims specifically.

There is little doubt that the same thinking is at work in the effort to undermine the biblical doctrine of hell. The liberal cannot believe in a God who will punish, much less punish in a place and under circumstances so terrible, as are portrayed in the scriptural pictures of hell.

All of his meanings and rationalizations notwithstanding, it is still the teaching of the Word of God. Let us not fall prey to such subjective and heretical thinking, for in doing so we may very well experience the reality of God’s place of punishment for the wicked – first-hand!

Guardian of Truth XXXV: 19, pp. 577, 598-599
October 3, 1991