Have You Not Read - S1:E8

The Reality of Hell and Heaven

Welcome to have you not read a podcast seeking to answer questions from the text of Scripture for the honor of Christ in the edification of the Saints.

I'm Dylan Hamilton and with me are Michael Dear and Andrew Hudson.

Before we dig into our topic. We humbly ask for you to rate review and share the podcast. Thank you. Today, we're gonna be diving into a few questions that we've had sent in anonymously to our website.

The first off we're gonna go with is Is hell a real place is.

Hell a real place. Well, that's a great question. The doctrine of hell or the understanding of hell is in sad disrepair in the North America Evangelical Church, and I imagine in a lot of places for reasons that Don't really pertain to the question.

But the question is being asked because it's not something that we talk about or think about or are well Discipled concerning and so people wonder is hell a real place when we read the scriptures. Very often we find that Jesus lays alongside the teaching of hell the teaching of heaven and he talks about heaven being a real place and He talks about hell being a real place.

So in that sense what we believe about hell its realities What it means. Its specific nature will also have an impact on what we believe about heaven if we believe that heaven is eternal and if that Heaven means being in the the favor and the love and acceptance of God.

Eternal life knowing God and a loving relationship eternally.

Then.

What we believe about hell is also so informed. This is some passages that certainly Affirm this. The for example, I think one of them would be in Matthew chapter 25 where Jesus speaks to his return that when he comes back he's going to Raise everyone from the dead and the goats are going to be on the left and the sheep are going to be on the right.

Those who do not know him who are in rebellion to his kingdom will be called the goats and they're on his left. And those who do know him and are part of his kingdom. Those who are Christians born again, they are called sheep and they're on his right and that's the vision that's the the picture in vision for us and he has two different things to say to those on his right and those on his left and those on his right he Welcomes into his presence and promises it an everlasting Fellowship and eternal life.

And those on his left. He says something very different in Verse 46 he says Matthew 25 verse 46 concerning the goats or concerning the unsaved and these will go away into everlasting Punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.

And so you see how closely those ideas are placed alongside one another and while there is a great deal of Instinctive belief in heaven. Oh, of course. Even though maybe the content of that belief is very fuzzy and perhaps very unbiblical.

The readiness to believe in a place called heaven is apparent. Whereas the reticence to believe in a place called hell it's also just as Obvious in our culture today. Whereas Jesus talked about them side by side so often that they are everlasting eternal places.

He also told a parable one time in the gospel of Luke about a certain rich man and a beggar named Lazarus and how they ended up in very different places. The reason why Jesus used these characters in his story is because.

There was a.

Belief in his time that if you were wealthy That meant that God loved you more that you were closer to God had more of his favor. And that clearly those who were wealthy and rich were those who were who had the best opportunity to enter into heaven.

Jesus.

Spoke to his disciples after Dealing with the rich ruler who went away sorrowful. He was unwilling to repent of his idolatry. And Jesus told his disciples that it would be easier for a rich man to get into heaven.

It'd be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven meaning The largest moving creature you've ever seen through the smallest opening your eye has ever seen than for a rich man to get into heaven.

And Jesus was doing that for a shock value because The assumption was the rich were the ones who were up at the front of the waiting line to get in and that everybody else You know had a much harder time of it.

And so his disciples said well then who can be saved? I mean if they're if the rich whom we assume are being favored by God Can't get in then then who can get in. And then God said that what is impossible with man is Possible with God so salvation is by the grace and power and the sovereignty of God.

But that brings us back to this story in Luke 16 about a rich man who ends up in hell and.

The.

The the poor man. Who they would assume was under the judgment of God because he was suffering. And he ends up in a wonderful place in heaven sitting right next to Abraham and what we learned from the story is that the the man the rich man who has died and he rich man died and was buried verse 22 says and verse 23 says and being in torments in Hades or in hell.

He lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom and Jesus is you know. He's bringing a story together here. He's not saying that there's gonna be you know. A hotline between hell and heaven and the people are gonna be talking but this is for the purpose of the story.

But let's notice that the body is buried in the ground but the person the the real inner man is still existing and living and he's in torment and He sees that Lazarus is not in torment and he asks simply for a drop of water.

So that he could have some relief of the torment of the in the flame that he is enduring. What kind of flame can this be when his body is buried in the ground and that his spirit is in torment? Well again, we're dealing with with metaphors and pictures.

Jesus is getting down on one knee as it were trying to explain things to a three-year-old. Because these matters are beyond us and yet even they're not comprehensible. We can still understand them by the Revelation of God and This rich man is reminded that There is no way for Lazarus to come to him.

There's a great gulf fix between heaven and hell. So there's not going to be Anyone in hell who's going to find an escape to get out and go to heaven, right? There's no purgatory there's no in-between state that maybe you can get out of the suffering and get out and get on to Paradise and there's no way for Lazarus a saint.

Having a good seat in heaven for him to get down to hell. He's going to he's perfectly preserved there. He's nothing's gonna happen where he trips and ends up in hell, you know, he's perfectly safe. There's a great gulf.

So these things are fixed we read and these are the assumptions. These are the teachings of Jesus Christ that heaven is a real place a real place of comfort a real place of peace a real place of rest.

Whereas.

Hell is a real place of No rest restlessness without torment without respite. So we see that Jesus makes Makes this clear in his Teachings that heaven and hell are real places.

The Justice of Eternal Punishment

Now.

One of the one of the challenges that we have is that the doctrine of hell is under a great deal of attack a lot Skepticism and unbelief a lot of denial that a good and merciful Compassionate gracious God who forgives and loves everybody Would ever create a place called hell and that would he.

And how could we ever think that a loving forgiving and gracious merciful? God would send any anybody to hell Who simply opted out of believing in Jesus or never heard the gospel preached to them? Why would a good loving merciful God send anybody to a place called hell?

Where they will be in torment forever and ever. That doesn't sound right. That doesn't sound right. That doesn't sound just. That doesn't sound gracious. That doesn't sound merciful. That is that just doesn't compute with our understanding of God.

And it's important to realize that skepticism about hell Doesn't come from the Bible. It is everywhere affirmed. The the skepticism and concern about the Bible comes from our from man's Imaginations about.

Who they think God ought to be right. Like all those all those terms you just threw out there just loving.

Gracious we've got some problems with definitions there. We do and we've got some problems with some idolatry and some pride. Everybody who complains about the plain teaching of hell in the Bible and says that that doesn't compute with a merciful God and God would.

What they're saying is that they believe that they are more merciful than God. That they have a better handle on mercy than Jesus did and that's a very dangerous thing to think. We don't understand enough about the holiness of God and we don't really understand enough about the justice of God and What sin actually deserves and that's the main problem, but it's how a place yes, it is a place it is it is a distinct Separation from the favored presence of God.

It is a kind of exile, but it is an exile and punishment overseen by God himself. He is the one who is bringing the hot anger of his own wrath against those who are in hell. And so we are to understand that the The place called hell is one that is warned about Many many times by Christ and his Apostles and we are to take warning and recognize that a holy God has every right to exercise his justice against our sins and unless unless we turn to Jesus Christ and find in his person and work our righteousness and our forgiveness and our reconciliation.

If We go to hell we get exactly what we deserve. And that's what the scriptures Robustly.

Testify to. Could you maybe flesh out the differences that we get from the two terms that we have Gehenna and Hades and the texts. Yeah, that's a good question.

Because when you read in the Old Testament very often you're coming across a word like Hades. It's in the newer translations the word she'll and it's an interesting it's interesting thing that. The translations some of the older translations translated Hades or She'll as hell.

Okay, and then that was same English word was brought forward into the New Testament and covered other covered work Greek words that didn't necessarily cohere with the Old Testament Hebrew words and so there could be a little bit of confusion there depending on what translation you're you're working with.

The.

Full.

Explanation of what hell is is a New Testament doctrine. It is something that you find in the New Testament. But it is fully affirmed by the Old Testament in some very significant ways. For example, the language of fire and brimstone in regards to hell is based on Old Testament imagery of God's judgment.

The.

Language of Gehenna. The the idea of Gehenna and being a valley just outside of Jerusalem Where the trash was burned and so on that is a metaphor. That's a metaphorical Reference that Jesus uses to describe what hell is but that comes that goes back to things that were happening in the Old Testament regarding a valley where Israelites took their infants to go burn them alive to the false god Molech and Because of that God brought horrid judgment upon these people and This same valley was filled with dead bodies that were rotting and then it became a trash heap an accursed place.

So this is a perfect kind of metaphor to use when talking about God's everlasting judgment after death. So there are some Old Testament pictures that become Very important material in the New Testament tried to explain what hell is and again This is something that we cannot comprehend but we are given what we need to understand.

Further when we talk about the word Sheol sometimes translated Hades in the Old Testament questions arise when we see Affirmations that not only the wicked but the righteous go to Sheol not only the wicked but the righteous go sometimes translated Hades.

So so what does that mean? Sometimes people have developed doctrines of losing your salvation based off of those passages. But we don't need to do that. What we need to do is think about how the Bible it talks about death that Sheol in the Hades is an expression of the grave and death is an.

Enemy and.

It is not something where we should be eager to die. Where we look at death and say, oh I can't wait. Or the you know, I'm really looking forward to dying and because I love my loved ones and we know what awaits us on the other Side to be with Jesus.

I'm hoping that they'll die soon, too. We're not a death cult. Death is an enemy that we understand. Has a doom date. Christ has been raised from the dead to die no more and He is on the throne at the right hand of the Father and he is reigning until all of his enemies are placed as a Footstool for his feet and the last enemy to be defeated is death.

And so the clock is ticking on death and death will be defeated. But death is a damnable thief. I hate death. I've watched death steal my loved ones before my very eyes and I can't do anything about it.

Death is not something that we should look forward to embrace or rejoice in. We rejoice in Christ. We rejoice in the promises. We know that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. So when we read in the Old Testament about death, we need to recognize that they were looking at death as an enemy.

And that.

The righteous had some hope okay, they did have hope that they would yet still live after death that they would They would again be raised up from they would again stand upon the earth that that after death after When Daniel goes to his end, then he will have his rest.

So there was hope for the believer, but nobody was looking to die. And death was a death is a reality that has been brought about because of sin. In the day that you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and Evil you will surely die.

Now the difference between the righteous and the unrighteous in the Old Testament when it came to Sheol and you know the idea of Hades and so on is this. The wicked when they died this was Not only a judgment upon their sin, but they died without hope.

And When God brought death as a judgment upon the wicked it was it is is a judgment In which there was no hope for them.

All right.

So we need to read it that way and understand that when the wicked were dying They were dying and they were being swallowed up by Sheol without any hope afterwards. And this was an act of a just and righteous God against the enemies of his people.

So that's why sometimes when you read in the Old Testament and you read about Sheol and Hades and so on it sounds like hell. Well, why. Because. Well because hell is about the judgment of God and This hopeless death is also the judgment of God versus the righteous who.

Still they didn't want to die. Lord deliver me from Sheol. What does that? What does that mean? They're asking for deliverance from death and truly in all of those Psalms and prayers and concerns and so on they are resolved in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as he.

Defeats.

Death. He defeats the one who had the power of death to enslave men to the fear of death. He won a great victory over our enemy in that regard. So I think that that is you know. When we look at it that way and we read the Old Testament expressions in light of the New Testament I think there's a lot of clarity in.

The Weightiness of God's Glory and the Meaning of Sin

Today's.

Culture. We still see the vestiges of understanding.

That.

Who the aggrieved party is and the nature of the grievance? Should determine the punishment. Even criminals behind bars. When they find out that there's a fellow inmate who harmed a child. They think that just incarceration is not enough.

That there should be further punishment.

So.

Even ostensibly criminals understand Why an eternal punishment. Through their own actions they understand. They can't account for it. But they can understand and demonstrate that this eternal punishment is just.

Because who the aggrieved party is and the nature of the grievance. Trying to as someone might have called it the great controversy. Trying to say I am the Nate. I'm the driver. I'm the master. I am the one who will determine good and evil.

I Am the one who will say this is how it should be.

What what greater?

Grievance could there be than to seek to throw God off his throne. I Can't think of it. I can't think of anything else and yet that's what our first parents did. Right, too. It doesn't it doesn't sound.

It doesn't sound egregious to our ears when we read for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Sounds like we you know, we'll we tried but we fell a little bit short because we can't jump as far as God can jump.

Well who can blame you? Did this but the reason why it doesn't it doesn't sound egregious to our ears is because. We are not Holy as God is holy. We are not as concerned about sin as he is concerned. We are not as passionate about the glory of his name as he is for the glory of his name.

Because he is God and we are not.

And.

The main reason why we don't understand the necessity of an everlasting punishment called hell Is because we don't treasure God as much as he treasures himself. And if he didn't treasure himself in the way that he did he'd be an idolater.

There's a weightiness to God. The word glory Kibbutz in the Hebrew means weightiness and that's the idea that you have in the New Testament about glory is weightiness. If you were to take all of the character and attributes of God and multiply them all together times in the eternity.

And this was done in a measure of weight. You'd have an idea of the weightiness of God. Think about the. Think about the science teacher in the classroom trying to teach his students about gravity and he has suspended a sheet a bed sheet From various points in the room and he gathers everybody around this dark blue Sheet and he wants to show them how gravity works and the solar system.

And so he takes a bowling ball and he places it in the middle of the sheet and what happens. It goes down and the entire sheet goes down with it and you can see the slope of the gravity. Visually and everything goes towards that bowling ball and that's the and and if you were to put you know a Golf ball in there or a baseball or what they all go rolling straight to the bowling ball because that's the weightiness.

And when we think about the weightiness of God his glory to fall short of the glory of God. When we have been made in the image of God we have broken the standard by which he has made us. So it's falling short of the glory of God isn't.

Well I I jumped as far as I could who can blame me that I couldn't get farther. It's I'm wearing the uniform of the of God himself. And I am betraying that uniform every day and in every way. I am not only a wall.

I am a traitor and that's what that's what it means. And then to be under the wrath of God is to be under the weightiness of that offended glory a white hot Fiery glory that's been offended and to be under that the wrath of God abides.

Upon.

The sinner and without a mediator without Christ. Without someone else a substitutionary atonement without Christ bearing that wrath upon himself. Satisfying the justice of God as our propitiation upon the cross.

Then without that without him. Then we will bear it ourselves and that is the everlasting expression of God's judgment called.

Hell it's maybe a little bit tangential, but it still has to deal with the doctrine of hell. And those who adhere to annihilation ism in the text that we've been going through in your Sunday school class in Revelation 14 Verse 11.

And the smoke of their term torment goes up forever and ever. They have no rest day and night. Those who worship the beast and his image. And whoever receives the mark of his name. Now I'm gonna focus on the smoke of their their torment going up forever and ever when we have sacrifices made in the Old Covenant.

And.

The smoke rises.

Up.

It's it's seen as a savory sweet smell correct. And something that is supposed to propitiate propitiate right. So this this Eternity and hell is actually a eternity of Something that is going to propitiate for their continued Sinfulness in eternity.

Is it not or is am I reading this?

Oddly, I would say that that God is Certainly satisfying his justice regarding their sin, right? There is there is not any.

Indication.

That.

These sinners go out of existence. Though we may think that you know, well certainly Certainly there's gonna be an end to it. Otherwise God isn't merciful. But again, that's us projecting upon God rather than us submitting to him.

So Certainly as we see pictures in the Old Testament about the sacrificial system and the sweet smelling aroma coming up to him. But those are the shadows of Christ because those were those were substitutionary atonements.

There are other passages in the Old Testament that deal with smoke rising up before the Lord and Even the expressions that there's smoke rising up forever and ever. A passage.

In.

Isaiah 13 about Babylon and her smoke rising up before the Lord forever and ever as an expression of God's justice being satisfied regarding some judgment that he has brought to pass. But the judgment of sinners for their sins.

And they have no mediator. I don't know if that's ever called a sweet smelling aroma to the Lord who does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. Okay, so we find that we find that in the scriptures that it isn't something where he.

We see the substitutionary atonement In shadow throughout Israel's history and those are sweet smelling aromas which are fulfilled in Christ Sacrificing himself for us. We also see other kinds of smoke rising up and that's when there was no mediator and there was no salvation and it was the judgment of God and he is righteous and good and There is a satisfaction there a satiation.

Yeah, there's a satisfaction there. But the question is is there a delight filled pleasure there and We're not given that language. We're not given that language and there's something there that's you know, of course beyond my ability to grasp but There is a a delight and a joy when we do something for somebody else that didn't need to be done.

Yeah.

Right where we do we when we give a gift and we are we show kindness and we. Or we we put some effort into doing something for somebody that they never saw coming and it was a huge and there was a does a joy there's a savoring and delight in that and.

But then there's also a different time now, I don't take a sweet savory delightful joy and. Perhaps doing something that needs to be done that has to be done and I've got to do it and in I may in my Preference desire something else, but I know this is the right thing to do and I'm gonna do it and when it's done well that needed to be done and.

These of course are not what we project upon the Lord, but I think there's something of God reveals himself to us. Having a right hand and sitting on a throne and so on even though he's a spirit and does not have a body like man he also reveals himself to us in man-shaped words.

Having to do with affections and emotions and so on and so forth so that we can understand him again. He's accommodating to us in that though. I'm not trying to put our emotions on to him. But I'm saying there's something reflective of of God us being made in the image of God.

Being renewed in Christ. Godliness being worked out in us that we can kind of understand the difference between the smoke rising up as. The substitutionary atonement of Christ versus the smoke rising up of hell both show us the justice of God.

Both show us that God is holy and that he does not sweep Sin under the cosmic rug, but he deals with it yet in Christ. There is a delight there. That is not it is not there when it comes to hell, right?

It may be propitiation wasn't what I was like. I was looking for satiation. Because yeah, what has to be quenched there is is the need for God's justice? Yes, and if you have annihilation ism nothing that that need is not satiated, right?

And so that smoke doesn't go up forever and ever as it should.

Signifying his justice forever and ever. Yeah, so the annihilation the annihilationist argument focuses in on man. Okay, and talks about the limitations of man the the nature of man and it's very man-centered.

The the doctrine of eternal hell the reason why it's eternal and I think that the scripture is just easily testified to that. Focuses on God his immutable holiness His everlasting nature. Well, that's good.

Book Recommendations and Reflections on Bitcoin, Psychology, and Dragons

We'll take a quick break from the heavy questions and we'll go into our book recommendations or media recommendations. Whichever you so choose start with you Michael. Okay. Well, I am.

Reading about Bitcoin. Right now and I've finished up One book I think it's called layered money, which is interesting. It was basically a distillation of a Somebody else's more heavy academic work about the nature of finances and the role that Bitcoin is currently playing in that regard and that was interesting read because I not spent a lot of time thinking about.

What.

Currency is or what money is in its nature?

And.

Even though I'd heard a lot about Bitcoin and messed around a little bit with it. I really don't understand it, you know. But then through that book I learned how complicated the American dollar is and I kind of like Oh, I thought Bitcoin was complicated.

The American dollar is like even more complicated. That's crazy. That was a book that you actually lent to me Dylan. I appreciated that and then I got barely started on another Book called the Bitcoin standard and we had a lot of disruption in our life.

So I'm just now getting back to that.

But.

In between those and talking about media. I wanted to teach my kids about what I had learned. So as part of our part of our homeschool we do Some history science focus throughout the week and so I wanted them to learn about the science of economics.

What is a dollar how to how those finances work, what does it mean and so on? So so we watched some stuff on that and that was that was great. And then we made our own. We made our own cryptocurrency.

And I played around with that for a little bit and they were you know. Trying to hire each other to do their chores and stuff like that so so that that was fun as we kept track of our own public ledger together and and.

Experimented with that. So what about you Andrew?

I'm gonna talk about the seduction of Christianity by Dave Hunt and the premise of the seduction of Christianity is Departure from biblical Christianity into self-help ism and How psychology has played a large role not only society in society, but also in infiltrating what Some would call Christian counseling.

The idea that you're not credentialed and so therefore you have nothing to say regardless if you're a Pastor or not. Oh, you don't you don't understand these matters. So it was a really it's a really good book to help you to understand The origins of where psychology coming into the church arose and then also some of the ramifications.

Now, I will say that he does talk a little bit about how you know, Like in end times type things and this is a these are signs of the end times. And I'm one of those people that it's like it's been the end time since Acts chapter 2 at the very least very explicit there, but yeah, it's it's a great resource to understand the infiltration of Pop or psychology in the church.

Yeah, very interesting. I.

Will go ahead and Recommend or talk about something I do kind of in my spare time as far as reading through different types of books, I Have talked to Michael about this before but I'm going through a sort of a study of dragons and how they've been dealt with through literature throughout time where they originated from That serpent of old we as we know he he was there in in the garden so that's where I first take my cue of dragons and and how to understand them as a as a character, but I've I've gotten to the point to where I've taken different Different texts like Jason and the Golden Fleece Bale wolf epic of Gilgamesh Bell and the dragon which you recommended to me and And juxtapose them to The types of literature that we have today like the reluctant dragon Aragon Tolkien which he's to me Tolkien and Lewis are kind of special characters because they don't take The same the same view as a lot of modern literature does on dragons.

Tales of Earthsea as well has a lot of dragon stuff in it as well and Just looking at oh and the the eon trilogy which I was forced to read the first book of and I do not think I was forced to read it in college for a Fiction course and I do not think I'll I'll read the other two, but that's that's besides the point.

But just seeing how we've gone from the dragon and understanding the dragon.

As.

Opposition to the king in any given situation. Most of the time in classical literature even in pagan literature mind you like, you know Gilgamesh he's he's an enemy of the dragon and Jason is an enemy of the dragon but today we we have the reluctant dragon that we cozy up to and there's supposed to be this big fight, but we as main characters in those that literature we cozy up to the dragons and watching it kind of morph into a To the point to where now we attach consciences with dragons and Aragon and they're a part of our conscience.

And I find that a little bit Worrying especially if you're supposed to view dragons in a certain in a certain way with certain typology, and I know that maybe that may be getting a little too Meta for certain people, but I see it as.

Especially in the trilogy Aeon where they they use the dragon in a sort of transgender leading towards an exception of transgender mindset and ideology, but all these all these texts of about dragons have been especially the classic literature have been real fun to read and Understand the difference between the pagan view of what the purpose of the dragon serves and narrative versus a Christian view.

Whereas in Beowulf the dragon comes to the king provokes the king before his face and the king is even though he may win glory in Fighting off the dragon. He's doing it to free his people and his and his land from the scorch.

Whereas in pagan literature Gilgamesh and Jason and the Golden Fleece. They're actually going to seek out dragons. It's not self-sacrificial. Necessarily it's not risking something whereas in Beowulf obviously he risked his life and so did a wig left with him, but the the pagan use of the dragon as a mechanism or as a character versus the Christian one is definitely interesting to watch and.

Juxtapose one to the other. Yeah, whereas dragons in more classic literature were used for contrast now they're used to.

Synthesize and mix things up and bring everything together into one and in actually like you are to in most of these cases the Consolation of the stories in modern literature with with the heavy emphasis on dragons is harmony with dragons, right?

Every you're brought into one with dragons your conscience becomes one with the dragon and We all rule together now and we bring peace on earth through demon possession and that's that's kind of the point where I'm getting towards it and I know that maybe No, you're just nitpicking but I'm seeing this kind of push from modernism to post-modernism this push to give way or give a little credence to Dragons being reformable if you will.

So that that's those that's my recommendation and all the all the classic dragon stuff and if you're able to go through the new stuff without being Tempted to and enjoy that To too much of a degree go ahead and go after it.

But I'd it's a it's a dragon study. That is not an obsession with dragons. We'll say that. But I actually think my recommendation leads into the next question quite well. Oh good, or at least my understanding of the next segue the next question It is what does the Bible say about dinosaurs?

Dinosaurs, Leviathan, and Behemoth in Scripture

Oh.

Yeah, so what does the Bible say about terrible lizards? Mm. Okay. Well we have Language in the Old Testament concerning Leviathan and behomoth that God uses in humbling Job so God describes, you know beasts that he has made that man can even Begin to figure out how to tame or Remember that God, you know told Adam be fruitful multiply fill the earth subdue it you know take dominion over the beasts of the beasts of the earth, you know and Exercise dominion over these creatures and we have Adam naming the animals and so on.