The New York Times Assault on Hell
The New York Times published an editorial, Why Do People Believe in Hell, on January 10, 2020 by David Bentley Hart that makes an all-out assault on the Biblical doctrine of hell. Hart says that the doctrine of “eternal damnation is neither biblically, philosophically, nor morally justified.” Not only this, but he advocates a universal salvation by cherry picking a few Scriptures without explaining them. Meanwhile he ignores the hundreds of Scriptures that say there are ungodly people, even called children of the devil, who will suffer everlasting punishment in a place called hell unless they repent and believe in Christ (Acts 13:10).
Hart’s goal is to make anyone who believes in hell to feel shame. He writes that most Christians have a “deep emotional need” to believe in hell and see this serious doctrine as a “delectable detail” of the Bible. For Hart, believing in hell is for morons. With judgmental hubris he even says that many believers “scream and foam in rage” at those who deny the doctrine. While I believe strongly the Scriptural teaching of a place called hell just as much as a place called heaven, I have yet to meet anyone foaming at the mouth to defend it.
David Hart gets Biblical Christianity and Christians completely wrong. Christians believe in hell because the Bible clearly and irrefutably teaches it. We did not devise this doctrine because of an emotional need for it, but because God in His inerrant word declares it, and we are broken-hearted that anyone would have to go there.
Hart says otherwise. He writes that hell is “entirely absent from Paul’s writings.” He dismisses the clear teaching of hell in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 14:10,11; 20:10-15) as mere allegorical images not to be taken literally. According to Hart, Jesus’ teaching about hell requires us to read the “original Greek” to understand it.
Hart’s conclusions are absurd. His real problem is with the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible itself.
Jesus Himself taught us that there are two places one could go upon death: heaven or hell. He said, “These shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal” (Matthew 25:46; read also John 5:29). Jesus says those who do not have saving faith “shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:12).
Paul also taught of the fiery wrath of God in 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9 that the Lord will come “in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God… who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power.” The Book of Revelation’s teaching about hell is not allegorical but quite literal. John tells of the very real coming event called Great White Throne Judgment (Revelation 20:10-15). We read that Satan himself is in the Lake of Fire and “whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire” (Rev. 20:15, see also Revelation 21:8).
The notion of a universal salvation is totally foreign to Scripture as there are “unreasonable and wicked men” in this world who “have not faith” (2 Thess.3:2). Hart says that “the frightening language used by Jesus in the Gospels, when read in the original Greek, fails to deliver the infernal dogmas we casually assume to be there.” While Hart may want the Christian, who does not read Greek to feel intimidated by his superior knowledge, we can read the most well-known Bible verse in the world, John 3:16, to know that not everyone is saved. Those who die in their unbelief will suffer a terrible punishment in hell, and those who believe in our Lord Jesus Christ will enter heaven: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”
Matt Recker is the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in New York City.