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Original airdate: Tuesday, September 3, 2019
*** SHOW NOTES (not a transcript) ***
Lead:
What’s at stake with the doctrine of hell? Well, a few things. Important things. If you’re going to have confidence in conversations.
Intro:
Here we are all about helping you think through — and have better conversations about — some of life’s big questions. That’s why in our Thinking & Reflecting Segment yesterday we started covering the topic of hell in a different way. Why is it important? Today we’ll do a quickie review of those three dangerous presuppositions we talked about and start on the ways that dropping the idea of hell is disastrous.
But in apologetics — rationally defending the Christian worldview — there is a certain tone and logic that is addressed. So today’s not going to be a theology of hell, per se.
Here’s the good news: If you are found “in Christ,” meaning your sins are covered by Jesus’ work on the cross, the Holy Spirit in you will quicken your understanding. It may not be today, it may be a light that goes off down the road, and as we read yesterday, Jesus’ own words were that all would be deceived in the end times except for the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.
Today we finish this last speech of Jesus before the crucifixion. I hope you, like I, catch the immensity of this moment, a unique event in all of human history where a God who so loves you culminates His rescue mission for you.
Sponsor:
Today’s sponsor and provider of background music is Pip Craighead’s The Dandelion Project, and the new track is Night School.
Bible segment (read along with The Bible Project):
Passage: Matthew 25-26
Translation: HCSB (Holman Christian Standard Bible)
Verses: 121
Words: ~2558
Thinking/reflection segment:
First two of seven disastrous consequences for disbelieving in hell:
1. If there is no hell, life’s choices no longer make an infinite difference. The height of the mountain and the depth of the valley, the importance of winning and the importance of losing a war or a game—these two things are relative to each other and measure each other. Drop hell, and heaven becomes a bland, automatic anything and everything for anyone and everyone. The razor-edge drama of life is blunted into a flat, safe plain.
We can see the difference hell makes by comparing Hindu or Buddhist cultures. In these Eastern religions there is no eternal hell, only temporary purgatories or reincarnations. The difference this makes to life here on earth is striking. Drama, especially tragedy, is something the West has specialized in and excelled at because it has theological roots in the doctrine of hell.
C. S. Lewis said he never met a person who had a lively belief in heaven who did not also have a lively belief in hell. “If a game is to be taken seriously, it must be possible to lose it.”
2. If salvation is universal and automatic, then ultimately there is no free will. We may still be free to choose between one road to heaven and another, but we are not free to choose destinations or directions on the road—forward versus backward, up versus down, good versus evil. It is no accident that those Eastern religions that do not teach hell also do not teach free will. Free will and hell go together; scratch the idea of free will and you will find underneath it the necessity of hell.(1)
Wisdom segment:
Passage:
Translation:
Verses:
Words:
Love you!
-R
Roger Courville, CSP is a globally-recognized expert in digitally-extended communication and connection, an award-winning speaker, award-winning author, and a passionately bad guitarist. Follow him on Twitter -- @RogerCourville and @JoinForTheHope – or his blog: www.forthehope.org.
Sources and resources:
(1) Peter Kreeft and Ronald K. Tacelli, Handbook of Christian Apologetics: Hundreds of Answers to Crucial Questions (Westmont, IL: IVP Academic, 1994), 282.