Response to J. I. Packer
John Ankerberg with John
Weldon
I. Introduction
It is my pleasure to be among the distinguished participants of this vital conference seeking to reaffirm scriptural truths to God's people and "to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3).
I sincerely appreciate what Dr. Packer has said and his evident concern for biblical truth and God's glory. May I commend each of you as well for your participation in this Evangelical Affirmations Congress.
In Matthew 25:45 our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ clearly taught, "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." Surprisingly, more and more Christians are disagreeing with our Lord concerning his teaching on eternal punishment.
In this paper, our response to this trend will be to reaffirm with Dr. Packer the traditional view of the church concerning the eternal, conscious punishment of the wicked. In addition, we will show that the new challenges today to the gospel almost all embrace universal views and deny eternal punishment. Finally, as respected Christian scholars and educated laymen increasingly reject the doctrine of hell and teach others that conditional immortality, annihilationism or various forms of universalism are true or legitimate options of Christian belief, we will prove that such scholars, whether they know it or not, are embracing the
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same doctrine endorsed and taught today by the devil and his demons.
In considering the different errant views, perhaps a brief definition of terms will be helpful.
Universalism is the teaching that all men (and sometimes, even the devil and all demons) will eventually be saved. Annihilationism assumes the immortality of the soul but teaches that God will forever annihilate all who are not saved; their immortality will be taken from them in judgment. Conditional immortality assumes the soul of man is not immortal, and therefore those not saved are simply never resurrected to eternal life. Nothing is taken from them or added to them; they just cease to exist.1
For nineteen centuries the church has done all in its power to post warning signs along life's way concerning the consequences of a sinful life and the rejection of God's salvation. Our Lord himself taught — "But I will show you whom you should fear; Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him" (Luke 12:5).
But in the last one hundred years — and increasingly today — and as an evangelist I weep as I say this — even in the evangelical church, the warning signs are being taken down by some of the very ones who should be fervently posting them.
Dr. Packer has said elsewhere that universalism "has in this century quietly become part of the orthodoxy of many Christian thinkers and groups."2
D.B. Eller asserts, it is clear that "universalism, in a variety of forms, continues to have appeal for contemporary faith, in both liberal and conservative circles."3
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Stephen Travis observes, "In recent years very few theologians have expounded and defended [the] traditional approach" of eternal hell.4
In his paper, Dr. Packer has refuted the proposed revisions of historic evangelical soteriology, particularly universalism, and also expressed concern that the church reaffirm its commitment to the doctrine of justification.
In our own field dealing with the new challenges to the gospel, we have found that the doctrine of justification by faith has been replaced and the doctrine of eternal punishment vehemently rejected. At this point in history, the situation is sufficiently critical that blunt words are needed in addressing the church. In light of the research we have done in defending the faith face-to-face with those challenging the gospel, the following affirmations summarize what we are convinced needs to be said.
II. Affirmations
Affirmation 1: Jesus Christ is the principal figure responsible for the doctrine of eternal punishment. The denial of eternal punishment is tantamount to a denial of the deity of our Lord and Savior. If Jesus Christ was misinformed or in error on this vital issue, he cannot possibly be God incarnate as he claimed, nor could we trust him in other areas, such as his promises concerning our salvation (Titus 1:2).
Affirmation 2: Rejection of hell is a denial of biblical authority which opens the door to additional revisionist and syncretistic tendencies in other areas. To reject scriptural truth at one point is to be able to reject scriptural truth at any point and thereby to substitute human speculation for divine revelation.
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Recent evangelical infection with universalism, annihilationism and conditional immortality is to the point.
Affirmation 3: The problem is not a scriptural issue but an emotional issue, contaminated by secularist and humanistic thinking. Nearly 2,000 years of church history confirm Dr. Packer's contention that exegetical arguments fail to discredit the doctrine of eternal punishment. Indeed, given the difficulty of this doctrine, only its scriptural clarity can account for its near universal acceptance by Christians over the centuries. Likewise, we must not allow our emotions to dictate truth. The issue is not what we feel or think but what God has revealed in his Word. For example:
"Just as our emotional aversion to the pain and suffering we see in this life does not alter the fact that they exist, neither does our aversion to any future punishment in the eternal state alter the fact that it will exist."5
Affirmation 4: To reject eternal punishment and accept other ways of salvation is to affirm that the cross was unnecessary.
Affirmation 5: To affirm universalism is a denial of the church's mission to preach the gospel and warn men to escape God's wrath and eternal punishment (2 Corinthians 5:11: Luke 3:7,9, 17, 18).
Affirmation 6: The doctrine of eternal punishment is the watershed between evangelical and non-evangelical thought. The doctrine of eternal punishment is interrelated with many other doctrines. It conditions our thinking in many areas of preaching and teaching. When friends, such as John Stott, Philip Edgcombe Hughes, Clark Pinnock, John Wenham, Basil Atkinson and other well-known and reputedly evangelical leaders, reject the traditional
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view of eternal punishment, the Church suffers serious or even fatal erosion in its doctrinal foundation.6
Affirmation 7: Universalism logically repudiates the doctrine of justification by faith. The doctrine of justification affirms that if there is "no faith in Christ, no justification." On the other hand, universalism teaches that the Atonement bestows justification upon all men of all ages whether or not they personally believe. When universalism rejects the authority of Christ and the Bible, offers men a false hope, impugns the doctrine of justification by faith, and hinders missions, its teaching is not merely an issue of "academic freedom" or personal conscience, but an outright refusal to accept the divine authority of Christ's teaching as such.
How important is the doctrine of justification by faith? Dr. Packer has well said that the doctrine of justification by faith is:
...theological, declaring a work of amazing grace; anthropological, demonstrating that we cannot save ourselves; Christological, resting on incarnation and atonement; pneumatological, rooted in Spirit-wrought faith-union with Jesus; ecclesiological, determining both the definition and the health of the church; eschatological, proclaiming God's truly final verdict on believers here and now; evangelistic, inviting troubled souls into everlasting peace; pastoral, making our identity as forgiven sinners basic to our fellowship; and liturgical, being decisive for interpreting the sacraments and shaping sacramental services. No other biblical doctrine holds together so much that is precious and enlivening.7
Those who hold out the slightest ray of hope for men and women who die outside of Christ, teaching they will be saved or
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annihilated, dare to do what God and Jesus have not done. Conditional immortalists and universalists dare to speak for God in the most solemn and sobering of all human realities — and in effect speak against God and call him a liar.
In conclusion, when a conditional immortalist text, such as Edward Fudge's The Fire That Consumes, is chosen as an alternate selection by the Evangelical Book Club, and when some of our most respected evangelical voices are denying the doctrine of eternal punishment, my fellow colleagues, we are in serious trouble.
III. Development
This discussion is not just an academic exercise among theologians. Almost all groups and organizations which constitute the new challenges to the gospel embrace universal views and deny eternal punishment.
We shall go one step further. In our ministry at The John Ankerberg Television Show, we hear this kind of thinking daily from those espousing liberal theology, those in the cults, the occult, and those in the New Age Movement. After a decade of research, it is abundantly clear that those who embrace the various forms of universalism and reject eternal punishment are unwittingly embracing the same doctrines endorsed and taught by channeled spirit entities. This is what the Bible identifies as "things taught by demons." Proof of this can been seen by examining the authoritative teachings of those today who are vigorously issuing new challenges to the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:
1. "Ramtha" is the spirit speaking through medium J.Z. Knight, who has guided Shirley MacLaine. MacLaine has sold at
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least seven million books concerning her occult experiences. Ramtha teaches, "God has never judged you or anyone."8 "No, there is no Hell and there is no devil."9
2. "Seth," the spirit guide who has authored twenty books through medium Jane Roberts, teaches, "He [Jesus] will not come to reward the righteous and send evildoers to eternal doom."10
3. Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, world famous psychiatrist and best-selling author of the book, Death and Dying, publicly admits she is receiving information from several spirit guides. Thousands of courses based on her philosophy are being taught to doctors, nurses and students in America. Kübler-Ross believes that Jesus' reference to hell "was [only] symbolic language . . . that God is all love . . . ."11 She teaches, "God is not a punitive, nasty God. [Traditional hell] is not a right interpretation of judgment. . . .You make your own hell, or your own heaven by the way you live."12
4. José Silva, founder of the popular Silva Mind Control Course, teaches people how to invite two "psychic counselors" into their minds on the third day of his course. This course was originally taught to him by two of his own "psychic guides." Now, close to seven million people have graduated from this New Age instruction. Silva teaches, " 'the devil' is just plain ignorance . . . hell is not a place full of flames but a situation that causes us to hurt . . . "13 He also said: "Rabbi Jesus did not mean to tell us anything about the spiritual kingdom of God that we enter when we die, when we cease to exist on this plane. We believe that after we die, we enter another dimension. Maybe . . . the dimension we came from, where we were before."14
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Silva claims, "Jesus never said, 'Being cleansed with my blood will save you,' and He [Jesus] never said, 'If you let me enter into your heart you will be saved.' "15
Finally, Silva states:
Thank God for sending Christ to enlighten us on how to use our inner kingdom (the alpha dimension) . . . [where we can] learn to use our right-brain hemisphere, and become clairvoyant. Thank you Rabbi Jesus Christ, and forgive us for being almost two thousand years late in understanding your message.16
5. Daisaku Ikeda, President of the fastest growing religion in America, Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism, teaches: "The life of the individual cannot be said to exist in any specific place after death. It is, however, part of universal essential life and is awaiting remanifestation in the world of actuality. The remanifestation will not take place in a mystical heaven or hell."17
6. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, founder of Transcendental Meditation, the most popular Westernized form of Advaita Vedanta, with two million graduates, teaches, "Every creature is on the path to perfection . . . No one should grieve over the death of another."18 He complains that it is a false religion which "creates fear of punishment and hell and the fear of God in the mind of man."19
7. Sun Myung Moon, the Oriental cult leader and spiritist of The Unification Church, teaches: "The ultimate purpose of God's providence of restoration is to save all mankind. Therefore, it is God's intention to abolish Hell completely, after the lapse of the period necessary for the full payment of all indemnity."20
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8. Mary Baker Eddy, a dabbler in spiritism and founder of Christian Science, believed, "To us, heaven and hell are states of thought, not places. People experience their own heaven or hell right here . . ."21
9. Charles Fillmore, founder of the Unity School of Christianity, which has influenced millions, teaches, "There is no warrant for the belief that God sends man to everlasting punishment . . . Hell is a figure of speech that represents a corrective state of mind."22
10. The Unitarian Universalists teach: "[It is totally] unthinkable for God, as a loving Father, to damn any of his children everlastingly to hell. The Nicene Creed must then be in error."23 One of their authors has written, "It seems safe to say that no Unitarian Universalist believes in a resurrection of the body, a literal heaven or hell, or any kind of eternal punishment . . . "24
11. Jehovah's Witnesses, who number approximately three million members, maintain:
Biblical evidence thus makes it plain that those whom God judges as undeserving of life will experience, not eternal torment in a literal fire, but 'everlasting destruction.' They will not be preserved alive anywhere. The fire of Gehenna is therefore but a symbol of the totality and thoroughness of that destruction.25
These statements should remind us of the Apostle Paul's words, "The Spirit clearly says that in the later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons" (1 Timothy 4:1). If Christians deny Jesus' teaching on eternal punishment, it should be clear that they are embracing the same doctrines endorsed and taught by demons.
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IV. Conclusion
Since our allegiance is to Christ, we should not imply salvation exists apart from his work on the cross or that eternal punishment for the unrepentant is less severe than he warned.
In Death and the Afterlife, Dr. Robert Morey cogently refutes the arguments of the leading universalists and answers the so-called arguments of leading conditionalists such as Seventh-day Adventist L.R. Froom, the author of The Conditionalist Faith of Our Fathers (which influenced John Wenham), Edward William Fudge, author of The Fire That Consumes, and B.F.C. Atkinson who wrote Life and Immortality. Concluding his argument, Dr. Morey addresses the church:
. . .unless fundamental and evangelical colleges and seminaries take a strong stand against neo-liberal professors in their midst who are peddling Barthian Universalism, within a generation or two, these institutions will be denying the Trinity, the vicarious atonement, the inspiration of Scripture, etc.
History has a nasty habit of repeating itself. Just as the descendants of Kelly and Murray ultimately became humanists and joined with the Unitarians in 1961, the descendants of the neoevangelicals will be Unitarian in theology within a generation or two. Let us hope that evangelicals will remember this sad fact of history and return yet to the orthodoxy of their fathers.
One last consideration which must be pointed out is that the breakdown of belief in the inspiration of Scripture and the growing peril of Universalism and annihilationism are preparing the way for future descendants of the evangelical church to be swept into the world of the cults and occult.26
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The truth of hell is that eternal punishment is a vital doctrine. It cannot, it must not, be ignored or abandoned. We must have the courage to preach it from the pulpits, in Bible schools and seminaries, and to a lost world. Vernon Grounds is correct, "It is impossible to exaggerate the seriousness and urgency that the doctrine of hell imparts to life here and now."27
Lest we be tempted to ignore this issue, let us remember the Apostle's admonition:
I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth . . .
(2 Timothy 4:1-4)
Questions for Discussion || Chapter 5 || Table of Contents
1. Conditionalists variously assert a resurrection prior to annihilation; nevertheless, there is no resurrection to eternal life.
2. James I. Packer, Christianity Today, January 17, 1986.
3. D.B. Eller, "Universalism" in Walter A. Elwell (ed.), Evangelical Dictionary of Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1984), 1130.
4. Stephen H. Travis, Christian Hope and the Future (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1980), 118.
5. Robert A. Morey, Death and the Afterlife (Minneapolis, MN: Bethany, 1984), 100.
6. Clark Pinnock, "Fire Then Nothing," Christianity Today, March 20, 1987; John Wenham, The Goodness of God (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1974), 40, 41; J.I. Packer, preceding article and also personal conversation, May 12, 1987.
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7. James I. Packer, Here We Stand: Justification by Faith Today (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1986), 5.
8. Ramtha, with Douglas James Mahr, Voyage to the New World: An Adventure into Unlimitedness (New York: Fawcett Gold Medal/Ballentine, 1987), 62.
9. Ibid., 252.
10. Jane Roberts, Seth Speaks (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1972), 389.
11. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Interview, Mother Earth News, May-June 1983, 22.
12. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, "Death Does Not Exist," Journal of Holistic Health (San Diego: Association for Holistic Health/Mandala Society, 1977), 65.
13. José Silva, The Mystery of the Keys to the Kingdom (Laredo, TX: Institute of Psychorientology, Inc. 1984) 70.
14. José Silva, The Mystery of the Keys. 141.
15. José Silva, The Mystery of the Keys. 162.
16. José Silva, I Have a Hunch: The Autobiography of José Silva (Laredo, TX: Institute of Psychorientology, 1983), vol. I, appendix 10a.
17. Daisaku Ikeda, Buddhism: The Living Philosophy (Tokyo: The East Publications), 31.
18. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi on the Bhagavad Gita: A New Translation and Commentary Chapters 1 to 6 (Baltimore, MD: Penguin Books, 1967), 107.
19. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Transcendental Meditation (New York: Signet/ New American Library, 1968), 251.
20. No author (Sun Myung Moon is generally conceded as such), The Divine Principle (Washington, D.C.: The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 2nd ed., 1973), 190.
21. No author, Questions and Answers on Christian Science (Boston, MA: Christian Science Publications Society, 1974), 6.
22. Charles Fillmore, Dynamics for Living (Lees Summit, MO: Unity Books, 1967), 278-79.
23. J. Mendelsohn, "Meet the Unitarian Universalists," Nov. 1974 (UUA pamphlet), 14.
24. W. Argow, "Unitarian Universalism: Some Questions Answered," October 1978 (UUA pamphlet), 8.
25. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Is This Life All There Is? (Brooklyn, NY: WTBS, 1974), 115-16.
26. Robert A. Morey, Death and the Afterlife (Minneapolis, MN Bethany, 1984), 220.
27. Vernon C. Grounds, "The Final State of the Wicked," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 24/3, 220.
