The
Silence of God concerning Hell
J. W. Hanson, D.D.
The first thought that
astonishes the mind when the Scriptures are consulted on this great question,
by one who has taken for granted that they teach endless torture, for any part
of the human family, is…
The Silence Of God
The
Almighty Father of the human family would not fail, at the very beginning of
human history, to announce to his children the penalty of sin. To conceal
such a doom as that of endless torment from any would be cruel treachery
towards those whom he had created, and who would have the right to know all the
consequences of disobedience. And yet only limited
consequences - temporal punishments - were threatened at the
announcement of the law to Adam, or when the penalty of their Sin was referred
to, in the history of the earliest transgressors. If endless punishment were
true, it would be stated as the threatened penalty of the original sin. (Comments RKM: See article on “The
Myth of Original Sin” “Are Men Born Sinners”)
Adam's Punishment
But
Adam was neither before nor afterward told that he had incurred or should
receive endless woe. The law and its penalty are in Genesis 2: 15-17. Adam died
as the penalty of his sin. How? This threatened death is not (1) of the body,
for physical dissolution was the natural result of physical organization, and
the death threatened was to be "In the day he sinned." His body did
not die in that day. (2) It was not eternal death for the same reason. He
certainly went to no endless hell "in the day" of his transgression.
It was (3) a moral, spiritual death from which recovery is feasible.
Adam
died this kind of death and no other "in the day" he sinned. The
death God threatened was in this life. Would all these consequences be
so fully described in Genesis 3:17-19, and the one of surpassing importance are
concealed? Would God perpetrate a "snap judgment" on his poor
deluded creatures? Impossible. Our first parents died in trespasses and sins,
as did the prodigal; "in the day" they sinned. The whole penalty to
which Adam or any other should ever be liable was fully described, but not a
word of endless punishment is there.
Cain's Punishment
The
case of Cain is equally explicit. What penalty did the first murderer
experience? In Genesis 4:9-14, there's not a word of endless punishment
for this greatest of crimes. "A fugitive and a vagabond in the
earth," not torment in an endless hell, is the punishment of the first
murderer. His punishments were all temporal, and were so understood by
him. Is it credible that in addition to all this an endless hell was in store
for this first fratricide, and not a word said of the awful doom?
The Antediluvians
Read
the detailed account of the Flood and of multitudes of antecedent transactions
for the long period of more than seventeen hundred years, and not an instance
can be found in which any other than temporal and limited consequences
are described as the result of sinfulness.
The Deluge
The
wicked people who were overwhelmed by the deluge were not threatened with
endless punishment. Noah, the first great "preacher of
righteous," (Titus 2: 5,) did not say a word of it when he announced the
flood. He threatened drowning, but said nothing of post mortem sufferings.
Would he have spoken of this comparatively slight disaster, and conceal the
enormous one of endless suffering if he knew anything of it? (Genesis 6: 17).
Just
think of charging God with describing the height of the waters, the amount of
the flood, the number of days, and all the small particulars of a limited
penalty, and entirely overlooking the dreadful fate in store for the millions
destroyed!
Nothing is said of endless punishment in connection with the
wicked people of
The Fate Of Amnon
Incidental
passages frequently occur in the Old Testament showing that the Bible worthies
entertained the idea that the next state of existence is an improved one, even
to those who die in sin. We find an instance in 2 Samuel 13:39.
The
king of
When
the wise seer uttered these words in Ecclesiastes 4:1-2, millions of sinners
had died - the ante-diluvians, the people of the wicked cities, and multitudes
besides, and yet he could say of the dead - all the dead - they are more to be
praised, that is, better off, than the living. He therefore agreed with his
father David that those who leave this world improve their condition. He
teaches that those who lay aside what Paul calls "the body of this
death," our earthly nature, are in improved relations. They cannot,
therefore, be in a state of ceaseless torment, but must be in a world where
Divine disciplines are being administered, for the purpose of working out the
redemption of the sinner.
The
dead are not more to be praised than the living unless they are better, purer, and
holier; and no father, loving a son, could be comforted because he was dead,
unless he believed in his heart of hearts that he was better, happier, and so
better off than when living. David mourned over wicked Absalom, living, but was
reconciled, "comforted," as he thought of wicked Amnon, dead. The
dead son must have been better off than the living son.
Let
us glance at a few of the declarations in the Old Testament, confessedly less
numerous and less explicit than those of the New Testament, and yet developing
the increasing purpose that grows and augments from the beginning to the end of
Revelation.
Various Instances
The
wicked whose character is described from Adam to Moses, a period of twenty-five
hundred years, are never threatened with endless punishment, nor is it
ever said to have been visited upon any. The builders of
The
punishments of sin are thus described two thousand five hundred years after
Adam in Deuteronomy 28:15-29, 67.
All
through the Old Testament, the wicked who are spoken of are never threatened
with any but temporal penalties. Abimelech is a case in point (Judges
Paul
tells us that under the Law, “Every transgression and disobedience received a
just recompense of reward" (Hebrews 2:2). Now, for four thousand years,
every wicked act was fully punished in this life. Would God have an endless
hell and keep it a secret from the world for four thousand years?
Would he keep sinners for four thousand years from a hell he had made, and then
use it as a prison for other sinners no worse? No; the silence of God for forty
centuries is a demonstration that he had no such place reserved for any of his
children.
If
God, all the time he was threatening these limited consequences of sin,
intended to inflict a doom compared to which all these are as nothing, then he
deceived the people, for the full statement of the law is in Leviticus
26:46. The laws of Moses enumerate many forms of punishment, many different
penalties, but never lisp a hint of endless woe.
The Promises To The Obedient
The
Old Testament does not teach immortal blessedness, but that limited happiness
and prosperity are the reward of goodness, in this life.
“He that dwells in the secret
place of the Most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. You shall
not be afraid for the terror by night; or for the arrow that flies by day; Nor
for the pestilence that walks in darkness; nor for the destruction that wastes
at noonday. He shall call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in
trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life will I satisfy him,
and show him my salvation” (Psalms 91:1-16).
“Great peace has they which love your law: and nothing shall offend
them” (Psalms 119:165).
“The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord; and he delights in his
way. Though he falls he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholds
him with his hand. I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread. He is ever merciful, and lends;
and his seed is blessed” (Psalms 37:23-25).
“You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you; because
he trusts in you” (Isaiah 26:3).
“My son, forgets not my law, but let your heart keep my commandments,
for length of days and long life, and peace shall they add to you. Let not
mercy and truth forsake you; bind them about your neck: Write them upon the
table of your heart; so shall you find favor and good understanding in the
sight of God and man” (Proverbs 3:1-4).
“See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil
in that I command you this day to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways,
and to keep his commandments, and his statutes, and his judgments that you may
live and multiply; and the Lord your God shall bless you in the land whither
you go to possess it” (Deuteronomy 30:15-16).
“And it shall come to pass, if you shall hearken diligently to the voice
of the Lord your God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command
you this day, that the Lord your God will set you on high above all nations of
the earth: And all these blessings shall come on you, and overtake you, if you
shall hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed shall you be in the
city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your
body, and the fruit of your ground, and the fruit of your cattle, the increase
of your kine, and the flocks of your sheep. Blessed shall be your basket and
your store. Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blest shall you be when
you go out. The Lord shall cause your enemies that rise up against you to be
smitten before your face: they shall come out against you one way, and flee
before you seven ways. The Lord shall command the blessing upon you in your
storehouses, and in all that you set your hand unto; and he shall bless you in
the land which the Lord your God gives you. The Lord shall establish you a holy
people unto himself, as he has sworn unto you, if you shall keep the
commandments of the Lord your God, and walk in his ways. And all people of the
earth shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord; and they shall be
afraid of you. And the Lord shall make you plenteous in goods, in the fruit of
your body, and in the fruit of your cattle, and in the fruit of your ground, in
the land which the Lord swore unto your fathers to give you. The Lord shall
open unto you his good treasure, the heaven to give the rain unto your land in
his season, and to bless all the work of your hand: and you shall lend unto
many nations, and you shall not borrow. And the Lord shall make you the head
and not the tail; and you shall be above only, and you shall not be beneath; if
that you hearken unto the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command
you this day, to observe and to do them” (Deuteronomy 28: 1-13).
This
was the reward, and the extent of it, of well doing. These rewards are all
temporal in this life. Exactly opposite were…
The Threats To The Wicked
These
were not endless but limited, not hereafter but here.
“Thorns and snares are in the way
of the forward” (Proverbs 22: 5).
“A fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell
therein” (Psalms 107:45).
“The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters
cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace says my God, to the wicked” (Isaiah
57:20, 21).
“This is the portion of a wicked man with God, and the heritage of the
oppressors, which they shall receive of the Almighty. If his children be
multiplied, it is for the sword; and his off-spring shall not be satisfied with
bread. Those that remain of him shall be buried in death: and his widows shall
not weep. Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare raiment as the
clay; he may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall
divide the silver. He builds his house as a moth, and as a booth that the
keeper makes. The rich man shall lie down but he shall not be gathered; he
opens his eyes, and he is not. Terrors take hold on him as waters; a tempest
steals him away in the night. The east wind carries him away, and he departs:
and as a storm hurls him out of his place. For God shall cast upon him, and not
spare: he would fain flee out of his hand. Men shall clap their hands at him
and, shall hiss him out of his place” (Job. 27:13-23).
To
attempt to quote all the passages that teach this doctrine would be to cite
every precept and every declaration in the Old Testament. All that refers to Adam,
Cain, the Antediluvians, Sodom and Gomorrah, Lot's Wife, Pharaoh, the
Egyptians, Ahab, Solomon, Jeroboam, Absalom, Amnon, David, the Israelites,
teaches that all are visited by limited, temporal punishments
and pains, and the doctrine is continually taught, that after the wrath of
God has run its full career in pain and penalty to the transgressor, the Divine
Mercy remains unspent and inexhaustible.
The Spirit Returns To God
Solomon
declared, when describing the dissolution of the body:
"Then shall the dust return
to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave
it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7).
He
depicts the destiny of every member of the body: the "keepers of the
house," the hands; the "strong men," the legs; "the lookers
out at the windows," the eyes; "the silver cord," the spinal
marrow; "the golden bowl," the skull; "the pitcher at the
fountain, the wheel at the cistern." the heart; all these become dust.
Would he not tell us the fate of the soul? He does, it "returns to God who
gave it." There, in the hands of its maker and owner, it cannot fail to be
cared for.
God's Anger Is Limited
A
great number of passages of Scripture speak of what the Bible calls God's anger
or wrath -meaning thereby his disapprobation and punishment of sin - as limited,
brief and destined to end, frequently contrasting it with his mercy, which,
it is said, will never end, and declaring that the soul of man could not exist
as the victim of endless wrath. God's delight is in mercy, and he
displays anger towards men for their benefit, and when the purpose of
the anger is accomplished, mercy is resumed.
"Who is a God like unto thee
that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant
of his heritage? he retaineth not his anger for ever, because he delighteth in
mercy" (Micah
“The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and plenteous in
mercy. He will not always chide; neither will he keep his anger forever”
(Psalms 103:8-9).
“For his anger endures but a moment: in his favor is life;
weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning” (Psalms 30:5).
“In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment, but with
everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord, your Redeemer”
(Isaiah 54:8).
One
reason why God will not "be angry forever" is because no soul could
endure the storm of God's endless wrath. The benevolence of God is demonstrated
in the statute of limitations, by which when pain becomes unendurable, the
victim dies. Endless torture no soul could endure.
“For I will not contend
forever, neither will I be always wroth: for the spirit would fail before
me and the soul which I have made” (Isaiah 57:16).
“The Lord will not cast off forever; but, though he cause grief,
yet will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies, for he
does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men” (Lamentations
3:31-33).
God
could not be angry with any soul forever, because it would be infinite folly in
him to do so.
“Anger rests in the bosom of
fools” (Ecclesiastes 7:9).
Can
it rest forever in the great heart of infinite wisdom? Preposterous thought.
Anger is contrary to God's nature, but mercy is his delight.
Man's Infirmity Doubts God's Goodness
He regards doubt of God's universal and unending goodness as an infirmity of
man, founded on no reality in God's purpose or disposition. Hence he declares:
“Will the Lord cast off for
ever? and will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone forever?
does his promise fail for evermore? Has God forgotten to be gracious?
has he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah. And I said, This is my
infirmity: but I will remember the years of the right hand of the Most High”
(Psalms 67:7-10).
“If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they
break my statutes, and keep not my commandments; then will I visit their
transgressions with the rod, and their iniquities with stripes, nevertheless
my loving kindness will I not utterly take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness
to fail” (Psalms 89:30-33).
An Incident And Its Lesson
In the very beginning of our Savior's ministry he came to "
“The
spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the Gospel
to the poor; he has sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance
to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them
that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord” (Isaiah 61:1).
Here
he stopped short, in the middle of a sentence, refusing to read the remainder
of the prophet's language, and "closed the book, and gave it to the
minister, and sat down" What was the sentence he refused to read? This:
“…And
the day of vengeance of our God” (Isaiah 61:2).
Why
did he end thus abruptly, and decline to read what the prophet had spoken of
him? Because he came to represent God as a Father and Savior, and would not
utter of himself one word that would seem to contradict that great fact. Now it
is admitted by all commentators that the Old Testament is silent concerning
the subject of endless hell, but say some, the New Testament teaches that
awful doctrine, and Jesus came to reveal to men endless torment in the immortal
world. And yet when Jesus stood for almost the first time in the presence of
his people, and read the prophetic declaration concerning himself, he
refused to admit that he came to announce a day of vengeance, but rolled up
the parchment in the middle of a verse. He would not read language that might
seem to teach that he came to represent a God of vengeance.
Be Like God
What
is the spirit of that grandest discourse ever yet heard or uttered, the Sermon
on the Mount? Be like God. He is kind to the wicked, good to the bad. Be like
him.
“Love your enemies, do good
to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you. But love you your enemies, and do good,
and lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall be great, and you
shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to
the evil. Be you therefore merciful, as your Father also is merciful”
(Luke
“Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good
to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and
persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven,
for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the
just, and on the unjust. For if you love them which love you, what
reward have you? Do not even the publicans the same? And if you salute your
brethren only, what do you more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be
you therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect”
(Matthew
Could this language be employed concerning God, if he consigned the
sinner to an endless hell? And if he did torment his enemies forever, should we
be like him, if we loved our enemies? The fact that we are like God
only when we are kind to those who injure us, demonstrates that God is the
same, and as he is without variableness, or even the shadow of turning (James
1: 17), the same yesterday to-day and forever (Hebrews 13:8), it follows that
he will always manifest himself with impartial kindness towards all. The spirit
of this language is in eternal hostility to the idea of endless torment, and
inculcates the restitution of all souls to Him whose property they are. We must
treat each other as God treats us, in order to be merciful as God is merciful. If
God is not merciful to all who offend him, where is our obligation? And if we
must not be unmerciful because he is not, how can he eternally punish? God
forbids us to overcome evil with evil, and demands of us that we overcome evil
with good (Romans
And
yet it is said that he employs his infinite power in overcoming evil by evil to
all eternity! "Recompense no man evil for evil" (Romans
“If your enemy hunger feed him; if
he thirst give him drink; for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his
head” (Romans 12:20).
And yet we are taught that damned souls shall cry for water in vain - a
drop of water - to all eternity. Thus God is represented as not
doing what he commands us to do, and doing what he commands us
not to do, and that to all eternity! Let it be shown that God is
unforgiving, cruel, unmerciful, will torment his enemies forever, and men will
resemble him most when they are most fiendish. If God were to torment
one soul forever, a Sioux Indian would be his best representative among men.
But as we are most like him when kindest and tenderest, it follows that his
mercy and love towards every child of his will be without limit or bound.
God's Mercy
“The Lord is good to all, and his
tender mercies are over all his works” (Psalms 145:9).
“His mercy endures forever” (Psalms 107:1).
“Also unto you, O Lord, belongs mercy, for you render to every man
according to his works” (Psalms 62:12).
Psalms
136 employs the phrase, "mercy endures forever," twenty times. A God
all mercy is not a God unjust, nor is a God all justice a God unmerciful,
inasmuch as God's mercy and justice are as the two wings of the Holy Spirit,
identical in object and purpose. God is merciful and just in punishing and
forgiving. When the Divine Love plans it is wisdom, when it executes it is
power, when it punishes it is justice, and when it forgives it is mercy. If one
sinner escapes his full punishment God is unjust. If one is lost he is
unmerciful.
“He is a just God and a Savior”
(Isaiah 45:21).
“You were a God that forgave them, though you took vengeance of their
inventions” (Psalms 99:8).
The
meaning of Psalms 99:8 is, he punished first and then forgave.
This he must do toward each soul. But if he torments one soul forever, where
is his mercy? The worst a depraved devil could do would be to torture an
enemy forever. Can infinite benevolence do no better than the worst malevolence
would do? His infinite mercy demonstrates the final salvation of every child of
his. Justice can only be satisfied with universal obedience to God's law.
Therefore it cannot demand the infliction of endless torment but must forever
insist on obedience, and forever labor to secure it.
God's Justice
“A God of truth, and without
iniquity, just and right is he” (Deuteronomy 32:4).
“A just God and savior” (Isaiah 45: 21).
“Who will render to every man according to his deeds” (Romans 2:6).
God will not judge for unbelief but for "deeds." Hence, as
each has done good and evil, each is to be, at the same time, forever happy and
forever wretched, or all rewards and punishments must be temporal. Justice
requires obedience. Justice demands that every mortal being should receive the
full measure of his desert. If all deserve endless punishment, all must be
forever miserable, or God will work eternal injustice on those who escape the
penalty, and as no soul will ever be able to suffer endless torment, so no soul
will ever be justly punished. If endless torment be the just penalty of God's
law, justice can never be administered to any one soul, inasmuch as no soul can
ever experience the penalty in its fullness.
The
law of God and the object of justice are to convert men
“The law of the Lord is perfect,
converting the soul” (Psalms 19:7).
“Now the end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a
good conscience, and of faith unfeigned” (1 Timothy 1:5).
“Jesus said unto him, you shall love the Lord your God with all your
heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, this is the first and
great commandment, and the second is like unto it, you shall love your neighbor
as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets”
(Matthew
All
men are to receive strictly according to their works. If it is just to punish
sinners forever, then all souls must be damned. And as all are to be dealt
justly, it follows, if any are to be saved, that endless punishment cannot be
the just due of any one. As all have performed both good and evil deeds, all
have merited both endless happiness and endless torment. Can men then accuse
God of so stultifying himself as to make his law a failure by annexing a
penalty that shall forever prevent its fulfillment?
“Comfort you, comfort you my
people, says your God. Speak you comfortably to
Here
the law was satisfied with a temporal penalty; therefore it does not
require an endless one. Hence we are taught that God fully punishes the
sinner, and then forgives his sins.
The Testimony Of Scholars
That
endless punishment is not revealed in the law, the wisest theologians of all
creeds agree:
Warburton: In the
Jewish Republic, both the rewards and punishments promised by heaven were
temporal only. Such as health, long life, peace, plenty, and dominion, etc.
Diseases, premature death, war, famine, want, subjections, and captivity, etc.
And in no one place of the Mosaic Institutes is there the least mention, or
intelligible hint, of the rewards and punishments of another life. Div. Leg,
vol. iii
Jahn: We have not authority, therefore, decidedly to say, that
any other motives were held out to the ancient Hebrews to pursue the good and
avoid the evil, than those which were derived from the rewards and punishments
of this life. Archaeology p.398.
Milman: The law-giver (Moses) maintains a profound silence on that
fundamental, if not of political, at least of religious legislation -- rewards
and punishments in another life. He substituted temporal chastisements and
temporal blessings. On the violation of the constitution followed inevitably
blighted harvests, famine, pestilence, defeat, captivity; on its maintenance,
abundance, health, fruitfulness, victory, independence. How wonderfully the
event verified the prediction of the inspired legislator! How invariably
apostasy led to adversity – repentance and reformation to prosperity! Hist.
Jews, vol. i.
Dr. Campbell: It is plain that in the Old Testament the most
profound silence is observed in regard to the state of the deceased, their joys
and sorrows, happiness or misery.
If,
then, the penalties of sin are limited in duration, we can understand this
reticence, even though those penalties should continue in the future state, but
if God meant all the time he was thus declaring temporal consequences, to
inflict endless torment, he was deceiving his children -- an impossible
supposition.
Were
endless punishment true, the Garden of Eden should have sighed the awful
tidings from all its leaves, it should have been thundered from the rocky
pulpit of Sinai, and have been shrieked into the ears of every transgressor
from Adam down. Would a good being, a Father, would a decent being, any one
better than a demon, sum up and particularize a score of trivial penalties, and
conceal the one that should be mentioned most of all? Would a wicked human king
threaten three months' imprisonment, say, for crime, and then behead the criminal,
when convicted, all the time concealing from him this capital penalty? Is it
supposable that God would stay to talk about drought, and fever, and scab, and
itch, when he had intended to burn, or even to imprison in an endless hell?
Such
a supposition is too enormous for the human mind to cherish.
The silence of God for four thousand years, the fact that he never
hinted at such a doom, demonstrates that it was not then impending, and if not
then, under the severe dispensation of Moses, it is impossible that it should
be found in the milder message of the Gospel of the grace of God.
Isn't it Odd? (For those who believe in
a Hell)
That
although the relationship of Christ to the church is often likened to a
marriage in the Bible, people continue to view God as demanding their love? No
one would want to marry a person who said "Love me and marry me or I'll
kill you." Or, "If you don't marry me, I'll torment you
forever." We marry for love and because we want to spend our life with the
object of our affections. We fall in love because of the tenderness, kindness,
and respect of the other. We marry because we want to; because we want to spend
our life with the other, not because he or she demands it. Isn't it odd that we
are better lovers than God?
That
although Paul says love does not keep a record of wrongs and Jesus tells us to
love our enemies, does well to them, and treat them kindly, because this is
being perfect like the Father in heaven; God is exempt from all of this? Isn't
it odd that God requires us to be more loving than he is?
That
we are told that God is love and that love is defined very plainly in the Bible
(1 Corinthians 13) as being humble, kind, caring, forever enduring, thinking
the best of others, patient, and merciful, and, yet, God violates virtually
every principle defined there?
That
a parent would never consider killing his/her child for a wrong done and that
we are encouraged to discipline them for their own good, but God will assign a
person to eternal perdition for one (any) blunder? Isn't it odd that we are
better, kinder parents than God is, although Jesus calls us evil parents and
parents that fall far short of the Heavenly Parent?
That
there is not a just judge on earth who would consider it justice to impose the
death penalty on a brother or parent in place of the guilty party, but God
calls that justice?
That
we would never impose the death penalty on a child for stealing a cookie, but
the merciful God Almighty does?
That Jesus would die for our sins and yet kill us for them?