“Are the Greeks right about hell?”
JULY 15, 2022
Steve Brown:
Are the Greeks right about hell? Let’s explain and the answer that on Key Life.
Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus in the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone, so grace is for all of us. But there is a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life, so here’s seminary professor and author Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson to answer your questions.
Steve Brown:
Hi Pete.
Pete Alwinson:
Hey man, how you doing?
Steve Brown:
I’m doing really good. I tell ya, we’re going to answer a question today with a word that I had no idea, and can’t even pronounce. And it
Pete Alwinson:
You know that. You’ve been there.
Steve Brown:
We’re going to talk about hell. That’s what Johnny Cash said, when Barbara Walters asked him, do you believe in the hell? He said, of course I do. And she said, how do you know? And he said, because I’ve been there.
Pete Alwinson:
Amazing.
Steve Brown:
Yeah. Well, we’re going to talk about that. And the Greek view and the Hebrew view, it’s going to be an exciting, wonderful, amazing broad gate. By the way, if you haven’t gone to ForgeTruth.com and clicked on the new podcast with Forge, you are missing something so much fun. So, be sure and do that. All you’ve gotta do is go to ForgeTruth.com. There’s a lot of neat stuff there. A lot of Pete Alwinson, but one of the best things there is this new podcast. It’s fun and you’re going to like it. And you’re going to thank me for telling you about it. And by the way, Pete and I get together and we’ve been doing it for a long time on Fridays to answer questions. And we love your questions. You can call 1-800-KEY-LIFE, 24 7, and you can record your question and sometimes a we put your voice on the air. Or you can write to
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Pete Alwinson:
Absolutely. The board always held everybody accountable.
Steve Brown:
So, we’ll be faithful with your gift. Help us if you can, Pete pray. And I know you can for the broadcast.
Pete Alwinson:
All right. Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, what a joy it is to be your followers. Our Great God, what a joy it is to be forgiven and free. And on the process to becoming what you want us to be, what a joy it is to belong to you. We give you honor and praise today. It’s been a long week, but we’ve seen your hand at work. And we trust in you. And we ask that you’d continue to do a great work in us that you started so long ago. Father, we do pray for our leaders and so thankful for our pastors and priests and teachers and worship directors and all those that are working hard to put the final touches on worship for the Sunday. And so we do pray for them. We pray that you would fill them with your Spirit and fill us with the Spirit, that we might be able to dwell together in unity, worship in unity, and grow in unity. We commit this broadcast to you as we are so thankful for all that you do in our life. We pray in Jesus’ strong name. Amen.
Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.
Caller 1:
My question is this, what is Tartarus?
Steve Brown:
It’s a sauce that I use with shrimp and fish. Right. In fact, last night I used some of the
Pete Alwinson:
It’s pretty good stuff.
Steve Brown:
Yeah. But I don’t think that’s what he’s asking.
Pete Alwinson:
Well, I don’t know, but I use that to get a fish down cause I’m not a fish eater, but my wife makes, okay, so officially Tartarus. Tartarus was the name of the God of the underworld for Greek mythology. It was a deep abyss that is used as a quote dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked, as well as a prison for the Titans. And if you’ve read some Greek mythology, the Titans were apparently some of the earlier ones, that the other gods descended from.
Steve Brown:
So, now you know. Now, talk to us about the difference between a Hebrew view of that and a Greek view.
Pete Alwinson:
We need to do a theological, a Biblical theological discussion of hell. Yeah. I’m going to throw it back at you.
Steve Brown:
But keep it short.
Pete Alwinson:
Keep it short. Who talked about hell more than anybody in the Bible?
Steve Brown:
Jesus did. Isn’t that awful? He really does. And, you know, there’s some wiggle room when you talk about it, but there’s not wiggle room about the ultimate end and the reality of hell. You’ve got people like C.S. Lewis, writing a book called The Great Divorce, in which he kind of teaches that the closer you get to God, the more real you are. And the further away you get, and you make the choice, the less real you are. And his characters in that book, you can see the grass through their feet as they move away from God. Others have taught, there was a, in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and my wife, and I love that place. And I, nobody I know does, but it’s a tourist place that makes, that’s tourism on steroids. And we love going there, but there was a guy that put up a hell attraction in Gatlinburg. This is true. It was a big tent and you went in and you went through all the places of hell. The last one was a lake of fire, and he had his sermons that he sold when you went there and I thought, you know, this isn’t going to work. And it didn’t, it lasted about one season and he had to close it down. But some people believe in hell is an eternal absolute, being fried in a frying pan. And you will be aware of it. Others and there are Adventist friends, and a lot of English evangelicals believe hell is, there are annihilationist’s they believe that hell is, you eventually are no more. And, you are annihilated. But whatever you think, and there is some wiggle room among Christians. It’s eternal lostness. And it’s forever. And it’s unchangeable.
It is appointed unto man once to die. And after that, the judgment.
And that’s serious stuff.
Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s really serious. And it’s sobering and it’s so complex and beyond our imagination, that the analogies are what causes the difficulty in really understanding it fully, but you’ve clarified what it is. It’s to be avoided at all costs. And there’s a provision to escape hell and the judgment of the living God, who is a consuming fire. And that’s putting our faith in Jesus.
Steve Brown:
Okay. I don’t want to talk about it in anymore. This is an e-mail, can we be repetitious in our prayers to God?
Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. What do you think that means being repetitious in our prayers?
Steve Brown:
I guess there’s the negative side that Jesus talks about, that the Scriptures refer to. Just, it’s kind of like having a prayer wheel where you spin it and you just go through it. But there’s also the other side.
Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. We see in one of his parables about the persistency of prayer. And we see Jacob in the Old Testament, not letting go of God. I’m not going to let you go until you bless. And I think there’s a sense in which those issues that I’ve prayed about, ongoing. It’s been a couple of trajectories, one, nope, I’m going to stick with it until God provides it. And then he does in his way.
Steve Brown:
That’s really true. Isn’t it?
Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. And so it surprised me, but I haven’t felt led to give up that prayer. And then there’s other things that you’re praying you go, yeah, I need to give that one up, because the Holy Spirit helps you see either the selfishness of it or of the silliness of it, maybe. And so I’ve, that’s for me, that’s how that’s gone. You know.
Steve Brown:
Those are good comments and they’re wise too, but listen, how often would you repeat things to your Father? You know, it’s the same thing, but sometimes you can just say it once and say that’s enough. But because he’s your Father, you can say it a thousand times and he’s not going to be angry at you about it.
Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. He’s perfectly, never gets tired of hearing our prayers.
Steve Brown:
You know, we probably should have paired this question with our earlier discussion. What does the Bible teach about purgatory?
Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Well, it doesn’t.
Steve Brown:
Now, we’re Protestants and we don’t believe in purgatory, but C.S. Lewis talked about a Protestant purgatory.
Pete Alwinson:
What did he mean by that?
Steve Brown:
Well, he was talking about that I Corinthians, I think first Corinthians three or six or nine. I’m not a navigator, but I’m not sure, but where he said that we’re going to go through the fire and all the wood and stubble and stuff is going to be burned up, but the foundation would remain, which was Christ Jesus. And he calls that a purging, a purgatory of where, it would be hard to go before a Holy God, the way we are. And so, God in his love burns that up, so that when we stand before him, it’s just Jesus. So, there’s a sense in which that is a purgatory in the way C.S. Lewis talked about it.
Pete Alwinson:
If that’s what you mean by it and want to see that, then I think that has Biblical consistency. I think to see a place of purgation where you go to a place to suffer, to burn off your own sins.
Steve Brown:
So that you can get into heaven.
Pete Alwinson:
So you can get into heaven, then that’s what obviates and disqualifies the work of Christ.
Steve Brown:
Yes. I agree. Can I lose my salvation? Another e-mail.
Pete Alwinson:
No.
Steve Brown:
No.
Pete Alwinson:
No, but this is a prevalent concern of people, you know, and there really is a, there’s a simple answer to it. No. A gift you’ve been given that cannot be taken away. Now, if it’s something you perceive, you earned, then why couldn’t you lose it, but that’s not what salvation is.
Steve Brown:
Yeah, I agree. And, but there are a significant number of Christians, Armenian in their theology, Wesleyan who believe you can, but they don’t believe you can very easily. My friend Dennis Kinlaw, who was for years, the President at Asbury. I used to tell him, Dennis, you believe you can lose your salvation, you just don’t think you can lose yours. He would laugh. And that’s true. It’s, whatever you are, you know that you can’t tell a white lie and lose your salvation. I don’t think you can. And I think the Scriptures are clear about it for the reasons you stated, but if you believe you can, it’s not very much. I mean, if you understand what the Scriptures say, you’ve got to be so totally stomping on the face of Christ and tell him to leave you alone and all that. You don’t lose it by sinning, right?
Pete Alwinson:
Exactly. Cause we’ve been sealed by the Holy Spirit for the Day of Redemption.
Steve Brown:
Amen. That’s a good way to end this. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.