1. A Lost Eternity
Rev J R Tallach
There is a hell to be saved from and a heaven to be won. Before moving on to a more detailed discussion of this profound subject we note that there are clear indications, even in this present life, of the eternal estate into which we shall all, ere long, pass and of the final division that will then take place. John Flavel states that the being of God is the being of One who rules by rewards and punishments. The righteous are continuously oppressed and the unrighteous flourish, but the divine Judge is righteous and He rules over all the earth throughout all of time. Therefore we conclude that each individual will yet be judged as his work shall be.
The Scriptures are also very clear concerning the division to come and the ground of that division: “treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgement of God; who will render to every man according to his deeds: to them who by patient continuance in
1This is the first section of a paper given at the 2018 Theological Conference.
well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life: but unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil” (Rom 2:5-9). Conscience provides another foretaste of eternal life or death. Even the consciences of the heathen who are without the Word speak of right and wrong. Romans 2:15 says of them: “Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another”.
Again the coming and death of Christ was to deliver “us from the wrath to come” (1 Th 1:10) and He was to be “the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey Him” (Heb 5:9). How could this be if there was no hell or heaven?
When Flavel writes of the certainty of a coming judgement and eternity, his final point is the undying and reasonable nature of the soul of man. In comparison with the beasts, our souls are rational and know themselves to be answerable for their actions. “Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?” (Ecc 3:21). The undying and accountable nature of the soul of man would lead us to conclude that an eternal estate, for weal or woe, lies ahead of man at his death.
There are three parts to this paper: (1.) A lost eternity. (2.) Heaven. (3.) Some erroneous teachings about hell.
Hell – a lost eternity. The name. W G T Shedd, in his The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, discusses the meaning of Sheol in the Old Testament Scriptures. He notes that the word is translated in the Authorised Version sometimes as hell and sometimes as the grave, though not the grave as in the sense of the place of burial. The meaning depends on the context. “A translation of Scripture made wholly on philological [linguistic] grounds and independent of the analogy of faith, would be certain to contain errors” (p 22).2 Sheol signifies the place of future retribution. It is where the wicked are sent: “The wicked shall be turned into hell [Sheol], and all the nations that forget God” (Ps 9:17). “In a moment go down to the grave [Sheol]” (Job 21:13). The biblical Sheol is always an evil and nothing but an evil (p 24).
These texts are to be understood in the context of God as judge, a future judgement and a resurrection for this purpose. He says, “To Me belongeth vengeance and recompense; their foot shall slide in due time” (Deut 32:35). Shedd writes, “The ‘wicked’ when sentenced in the last judgement are ‘turned into Sheol as idolaters and all liars'” (p 28) and when sentenced “have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Rev 21:8).
2References in brackets in this article are to: W G T Shedd, The Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, London, 1887.
Texts in the Word of God which assert Him to be a Judge and that there is to be a future resurrection and a future judgement lead us to believe in an eternal lost state. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18:25). “The wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? They shall be brought forth to the day of wrath” (Job 21:30). “Verily He is a God that judgeth in the earth” (Ps 58:11). These texts lead to the conclusion that there is a place where the sentence of condemnation is executed and where the sentence pronounced by the supreme Judge is experienced. The wicked are turned into Sheol as idolaters and “have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone” (Rev 21:8).
That Sheol is the proper name for hell is, secondly, proved from the fact that there is no other name for it in the Old Testament. If this term is not accepted for the place of punishment there, it could be argued that the Old Testament does not teach the doctrine of a lost eternity.
A third source of understanding of the term Sheol is where a contrast is made in the Old Testament between Sheol and the contrary blessed, bright abode of the righteous. “Let me die the death of the righteous and let my latter end be like his!” (Num 23:10). “As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.” (Ps 17:15). “But God will redeem my soul from the power of the grave [sheol]: for He shall receive me” (Ps 49:15).
Fourthly, Sheol is the place of retribution because of its connection with spiritual and eternal death. Spiritual death is the death which Paul speaks of in Romans 5:12, which has “passed upon all men” by reason of the first transgression of Eden. This connection between spiritual and eternal death is seen in Proverbs 8:36: “All they that hate Me love death”, and by way of contrast to Proverbs 10:17: “He is in the way of life that keepeth instruction”.
Sheol, or hell, is at the end of a godless life. “Her house is the way to hell [Sheol], going down to the chambers of death” (Prov 7:27). Eternal death and Sheol are joined in Proverbs 5:5: “Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold on hell [Sheol].”
The term Sheol may also describe the grave, since physical death is viewed as a part payment of the debt man owes to God for the transgression of His justice. Shedd quotes another writer as saying that the English version renders Sheol by grave in 30 instances out of 64 (p 37).
The grave has dark associations in both the Old and New Testaments and, although Christ has brought “immortality to light through the gospel”, our faith is weak and uncertain and we need grace to die as truly as we need grace to live. The resurrection raises the bodies of unbelievers as well as believers, but there is no triumph for unbelievers – only “shame and everlasting con-
tempt” (Dan 12:2). “Therefore hell [Sheol] hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure; and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth shall descend into it” (Is 5:14). Thus the fallen Babylonian monarch.
The New Testament terms for a place of future punishment are Hades and Gehenna. Christ uses the term Gehenna 12 times and James once (Jas 3:6). The word arises from the valley of Hinnom near Jerusalem, where the worship of Moloch was practised. By the time of Jesus’ birth the term Gehenna was used for endless torment, as distinct from paradise for endless blessedness. Hades is the Septuagint3 translation of Sheol and, like Sheol, is used as (1) the place of retribution and (2) the grave.
As the place of future punishment, the rich man in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus opened his eyes in Hades, a place of torment in which there was to be no mitigation of the just anger of God and no escape from that flame because of the gulf fixed between Hades and the bosom of Abraham.
Hades is inseparably connected with spiritual and eternal death: Christ said, “I . . . have the keys of hell [Hades] and of death” (Rev 1:18). “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell [Hades] followed with him” (Rev 6:8). Hades stands for the place for those under the power of the second death; so Revelation 2:11: “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death”. This “second death” is “cast into the lake of fire” (Rev 20:14) and never destroyed. Those subject to the second death are cast into a lake of fire and brimstone with the devil that deceived them, “and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever” (Rev 20:10).
That Hades is also the name sometimes given to the grave is illustrated by several instances, such as Acts 2:27 in the New Testament: “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [Hades]”. In general, however, Hades is the disembodied state of the wicked between death and the resurrection, as Paradise is the place for the righteous. Stephen called upon God, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59).
The Westminster Standards put matters very clearly. The Larger Catechism (Answer 86) states that “the souls of the wicked are at their death cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, and their bodies kept in their graves, as in their prisons, till the resurrection and judgement of the great day”. In essence the Reformed view is that the intermediate state of the saved is heaven, without the body; and the final state is heaven, with the body. The intermediate state for the lost is hell, without the body; and the final state is hell, with the body.
3The translation of the Old Testament into Greek which was in use in the time of Christ.