May 13, 2011
Does the Book of Acts Go Soft on Hell?
I learned that the Gospel wasn’t just good news. It was bad news first, then good news, and the good news was so good because the bad news was so bad.
Or something like that.
I used to share the Gospel like this:
“The bad news is that your sin has separated you from God and destined you to eternity separated from him in hell. The good news is that Jesus has paid for your sin with his death and now clears the way for you to go to heaven.”
We could say a lot about this version of the Gospel, and I certainly don’t want to slam it necessarily. Heck, this was how I found Jesus, so it wasn’t all that bad!
However, there’s something about this version of the Gospel that hasn’t been sitting all that well with me: must the bad news come first? I don’t want to go soft on what the Bible says, but I also wasn’t sure about beginning with the bad news. I generally found that the bad news alienated people from the get go, and I never got to the good news, which is sort of counterproductive.
Did the Bible have anything to say about this?
I looked in the book of Acts. Acts documents the mission of the church and the spread of the Gospel, but the word hell doesn’t come into play. Peter mentions the “grave” in Acts 2, which is the word “hades” that is sometimes translated as hell, but otherwise, we don’t have a record in Acts of hell being used as a prompt to believe the Gospel.
While Acts presents a rather abridged version of the Gospel, I’m still shocked to read that something so basic and elemental for my own understanding of the Gospel wasn’t included. The closest we come to a concept of hell is Paul’s sermon on Mars Hill in Acts 7 where he mentions that God will judge all people some day.
The concept of judgment is very well developed in the Bible and consistent between the two testaments. Paul, the author of Hebrews, Peter, and John all mention judgment in their letters. However, the message of judgment isn’t necessarily what the early Christian missionaries used as their “leading point” when sharing the Gospel. They instead explained the person of Jesus in relation to the people they were speaking to and then calling them to repent of their sins and to follow Jesus.
This reveals a tension in the Bible. On one hand, I think folks in my end of the Christian camp, the evangelicals especially, have tended to overemphasize the concept of hell. While we can speak of God’s judgment one day, we don’t actually know what will happen to those who reject God. Hell is a very slippery subject since two different words are used in reference to hell and the passages in the Gospels where they show up aren’t necessarily about the “bad news” of being cast into eternal, conscious torment. It’s just not as clear as we’ve thought.
In addition, any mention of hell in the book of Revelation doesn’t help us all that much, since Christians are notorious for not understanding that book.
We actually don’t know too much about hell. We know that people will most likely be separated from God in some way if they reject his offer of forgiveness and salvation, but the details become murky after that.
Christians have not been unanimous historically about hell, and even some church fathers believed that God would continue to reach out to the unbelievers after death—something based on Bible passages by the way. My handy Christian Theology reader documents several Christian views on hell and punishment in the historic church.
Our task today is to faithfully preach the message of God’s love and saving work without going too far toward the details of hell and avoiding a counter-swing away from any notion of God’s judgment. There will be judgment, but we don’t know too much about the punishment.
Before we run off to preach about God’s judgment though, a word of caution is in order. Many of the warnings of Jesus about hell and judgment were directed at the religious leaders and his own disciples. In fact, just glancing at “Gehenna”in my Greek concordance, I don’t think I see one instance of Jesus reaching out to an unbeliever with a message about hell. He’s speaking to his followers or the Pharisees in each scenario.
I’m not saying we should avoid speaking of God’s judgment. However, we should we wary about letting the message of judgment trump the Good News that is supposed to ring out loud and clear.
Excellent post, Ed. Well-thought out.
It’s a revelation to my students in Intro to New Testament that the preaching in Acts and the Epistles is *not* about avoiding Hell and Going-to-Heaven-When-You-Die.
It’s almost uniformly about the person and identity of Jesus Christ. As you point out, judgment is mentioned from time to time, but the Gentile world contained a pantheon of angry gods larger than the cast of Angry Birds. Nearly everyone understood the “bad news” at some level.
Lately I’ve come to see the gospel in terms of “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand,” that is: Heaven is breaking into earth *right now.* The word repent is not a fire-and-brimstone word (despite Evangelical preaching of the last 250 years), it’s a “realignment” word. As in: “in light of what God is doing through Jesus, re-think your way of life, because heaven is breaking in this world.”
Nice series, Ed.
I think part of the problem is we’ve changed the window dressing by saying, “No, following Jesus isn’t about a ticket to heaven.” However, we leave our theology in place, not changing a thing. I like how you explain repentance. I’m totally stealing that line.
I’m more and more convinced that “eternal life” is more about living with God in the future and so we need to start living in his ways now so that we’re ready to live with him in the future. Does that make sense?
Try this on for size:
Sin has destroyed our relationship with God; repentance is the 1st step in the process of restoration of that relationship.
Probably might be criticized for over simplification but it’s a start.
Well said John. The focus certainly is on the problem of sin and the restoration found in the person of Jesus.
Hey,Ed.I had this thought the other day in response to your post. I guess I’m still thinking about it so here it is. A lot of people are already living a “hell on earth” and we don’t have to convince them of hell.I believe their hearts will welcome a message of hope for their desperate need. Maybe we just need to be delivering the message to the people who have ears to hear because if people are feeling pretty content with their present situation, you may not be able to convince them of a need for a Savior from a future hell.God will show us who those hungry hearts are.I believe we definitely have a message of hope!Alta
There’s something to the “ears to hear” part of it. Scare tactics don’t seem to factor into that understanding of sharing the Gospel.