The fact that there is a heaven is just as certain and true as it is that there is a God. I don't know one religious person who does not believe that heaven is real. Many today do not believe in the reality of hell. If the Bible teaches that heaven is real, it surely teaches hell is real.
A reader called, stating that he had learned in the last two or three years that hell was a figurative term. In fact, those who do not go to heaven are only separated from God, and since God is love, he would not punish eternally. This is a very dangerous conclusion. Of course, to be in hell is to be separated from God, but is it only separation with no punishment?
We read of that separation in Luke 16:19-31. (Some would call this a parable. If it were a parable, it teaches the same truth because a parable is based upon an occurrence of a familiar kind.) "There was a certain man...and there was a certain beggar named Lazarus. ...And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; and in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame... but he is comforted, and thou are tormented. And besides all this, between us and you is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence."
A figure is a likeness of something. If this is a figure describing something else, then one would assume that hell is even worse than we can imagine.
But, suppose that God was trying to describe a real place, what other language could he have used to describe it?
"There is a great gulf fixed," is the separation from God. The place is called hell. The rich man was tormented, and asked for mercy, because he was tormented in this flame. His punishment was so great that he requested of Abraham to send "Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue."
Hell will be filled with pain and torment. John said "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever" (Rev. 14:11).
The danger of teaching that hell is only a separation from God is , it takes away the motivating factor of fear. Jesus spoke of hell as "a furnace of fire" (Matt. 13:41-42), "outer darkness" (Matt. 25:30), "everlasting fire" (Matt. 25:41), "everlasting punishment" (Matt. 25:46), and referred to the wicked as being raised "unto the resurrection of damnation," in John 5:28,29. Why would he use such terms to describe only a separation from God?
We will give account unto God in judgment for the things we teach: "But I say unto you, that every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment" (Matt. 12:36). "...the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day" (John 12:49).
"If a man speak let him speak as the oracles of God" (I Pet. 4:11).
Don H. Noblin
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