Eternal state divides into eternal punishment and the new earth, eternal punishment. Hell is the final, not the intermediate state. The Bible's big subject is God. Secondly, the Bible is interested not in angels, but in God's creatures, human beings. And there, the Bible's concern is much more for the righteous than the unrighteous. And concerning the righteous, as you know from the hook of a reading, testing it by the Bible, the main, our main hope is not the intermediate state but the resurrection of the dead. Underneath that, there is a hope of the intermediate state concerning the wicked. God is more concerned about God, the main subject of the Bible is God, then the righteous, then the wicked, so we have less about the resurrection of the wicked than we do about the righteous. First Corinthians 15, for example, implies judgment, but doesn't talk about the resurrection of the wicked. A number of places in the Bible do, what I'm trying to say is the main thing the Bible says about hell is not the intermediate state but the final state, okay? At least one passage, that is Luke 16, the power of the rich man and Lazarus talks about the intermediate state of hell perhaps one more speaks about it depending upon how one translates a verse in 2 Peter 2, I think it is, but for now hell is the final, not the intermediate state, it follows the second coming, Matthew 25, 31, Son of Man will come in his glory, sit on his throne, he will divide the sheep in the goats, okay? He tells the goats, depart from me, you wicked into the fire prepared for the devil and his angels. It follows hell does the resurrection, that makes sense, people have to be raised in order to go onto the new earth and in order to be thrown into the lake of fire and it fact it follows the last judgment, that makes sense since God is just and will manifest His justice and so forth. The master of hell, top of page 74, is not Satan as one part of the Christian tradition as has surfaced, again and again in the Christian tradition, but is God Himself. I understand that Satan will have no rulership, has no and will have no Lordship in hell. God is the Lord of the heavens, the earth, hell and anything else we can think of. He is the master of hell, of the devil receives the worst punishment in hell, if there are degrees of punishment, then woe unto Him, Revelation 2010. To define hell as separation from God is not wrong, 2nd Thessalonians 1, but it is incomplete, and certainly if God is everywhere present, there is a sense, He is present in hell. As Revelation 1410 says when it speaks of the wicked, suffering eternal torment in the presence of the angels and in the presence of the Lamb, a symbol for Christ in Revelation every place, but one, and that one is very obviously not a symbol of Christ. The 2nd Peter passage about the intermediate state of the wicked possibly is 2nd Peter 2.9, depending upon how one translates a participle, 2nd Peter 2.9. The one Revelation passage where Lamb does not speak of Christ is Revelation 1311, I saw another beast coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon, obviously not Christ. Everywhere else, the lamb that was slain and so forth is a reference to Christ. Thus Revelation 1410 says, he, the idolater from the last days, will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. Christ is present in hell. In the same way that he is present in heaven, no. He will manifest his glory, his grace, his love, he will have fellowship with the people of God on the new earth. In hell, he will manifest his holiness, justice, power and wrath. There will be no fellowship, rather the wicked will experience what Revelation earlier calls, the wrath of the Lamb and ironic expression, indeed. A description of hell, the New Testament paints at least five pictures of hell, darkness and separation speaks of being cut off from the fellowship of God. Matthew 22 and other texts use these banquet scenes to speak of the great eschatological or messianic banquet, being put out of the banquet and thrown into the outer darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth, means to be cut off from the joy and love of God's fellowship. It means the opposite of what the feast connotes, the feast speaks of enjoying the presence of God and of the people of God. He'll sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob and all the saints, he says it's going to be a big table. So it will be. The picture is one of warmth, fellowship, communion, if you will. It's a picture of Thanksgiving day at your house, or maybe of some neighbor or relative cares enough about you and yours to have you over. That's what it speaks of, all the blessings, that kind of a festive holiday, and being put out of it is not a good thing. It speaks of just being disowned by one's maker and separated from his fellowship forever. Fire imagery, contrary to the annihilationist claims, speaks not of consumption, oh, fire sometimes speaks of consumption in the Bible, but the question is, what does fire speak of in the hell passages in the Bible? It speaks of pain, speaks of torment, as passage after passage bears witness. Matthew 25, 41, to part you cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. A few verses later, these will go away to eternal punishment. And Revelation 2010 tells you what the fire into which the devil will be cast is like they will suffer forever and ever night and day, forever and ever, that will be tormented. Fire most frequently speaks of torment, of the suffering of pain in these different texts. Compare Luke 16, it is the intermediate state, but still the imagery holds true, where the wicked rich man is in torment in these flames. It speaks of the place of torment, again and again. How can John's thought and other good men say otherwise? My conclusion is, they want hell to be annihilation rather than eternal torment, okay? That is an example of wish fulfillment. They can make certain verses fit, some of the perishing and destruction passages could fit that view, but taking all the data into account, which is what you have to do in science and in theology, in terms of making models, you've got to take all the data into account, you can't make your experiment work out in science by excluding some of the data, same way in theology, you can't pick and choose and take a partial sample, you've got to take what all the passages say about any given topic. Theology is more than scientific, but it ought not to be less than scientific. Now is the weeping and gnashing of teeth, the crying and grinding of teeth. I'm struck by the fact that this is used in conjunction with fire imagery, with darkness imagery, and with a terrible image of human beings being cut in pieces. None of this is literal, nobody says people are going to be cut in half, okay? The imagery is horrendous, it all speaks of. Unimaginable suffering of pain at the hands of Almighty God, and the worst of it is forever. Francis Shafer, when asked about hell, one of the tremendous things of Shafer's ministry was, his teaching of atla-brie was almost always in a context of unsaved people being there. And when he was asked at least one time, maybe more than once. What does the Bible say about hell? This was not contrived, but the man was broken by the Word of God, and at least on one occasion I think even more. He didn't give a verbal answer immediately, he rather just wept for some minutes. And then he gave an answer, turned to this passage, turned to that passage. Well, again, we don't turn that off and on, all right, and he wasn't playing. He was feeling in the depths of his being the truth of it. We say coldly, some of these things, we're certainly missing the boat and missing the purpose of the teaching of hell. But it is enough to move one to tears, and ought to move us to tears in our prayers and in our concern for lost ones. Hell was also punishment, Matthew 25, 46. These the goats will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. Other places to speak of it as punishment. Death and destruction, don't fear those who can destroy the body, Matthew 10, 28, rather fear him. I'm stalling, here we go, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, but cannot kill the soul, it means human beings, rather be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body and hell. It is not the devil that some have said, it's God, he can destroy soul and body and hell. Does this not fit with annihilationism? Yes. Does it teach annihilationism? No, it cannot, if we take into account all the Bible has to say, what does it mean then destroy the soul and the body and hell? It means eternally to ruin eternally, to waste all that is meaningful in a human life and existence. Questions or comments concerning the biblical teaching on hell? Yes. Grinding of teeth speaks of people gnashing their teeth in pain. We say that because of the conjunction of the two ideas, the weeping and gnashing of teeth. It speaks of people. I think of these funeral images, I just saw some from the Near East, happened to be Palestinians this time, could have been, you know, Israelis a week ago, so I'm not trying to play favorites there, but just widows and others and just bereaved people, just whaling, and we've all seen people trying to cope with excruciating pain and they grind their teeth. I think that's the image, trying to cope with that which is can't be coped with. It speaks of human beings in extremity, in just horrible suffering and in their response to it. Again, it's an image, but remember, we're talking about resurrected holistic human beings here, capable of suffering physical and spiritual pain forever. Yes sir, it's a very good question. The question is, how do we reconcile the eternality of hell with the fact that Christ in a finite period of time took our punishment? It's a great question. Over the four, annihilationist, chief annihilationist books written in this century, won by a Anglican named Adkinson, won by an Anglican missionary named Gilbo, the seventh-day Adventist worked by Froome and the Edward Fudge's book, The Fire That Consumes, which is just going into a second printing with Patternoster this time, the first time Fudge published it himself out of his own providential press, he calls it, three of the four teach that Christ was annihilated in his death, the fourth one, Gilbo's, implies he was annihilated. Fudge is explicit that Christ was annihilated, giving these people the benefit of the doubt. Here's what they're doing. They're arguing Christ suffered the pains of hell. He's thus an example of eternal punishment. They think they're defeating the traditional view by saying that. He's not still on the cross. He's not suffering everlasting punishment on the cross, is he? No. Well, no. It says he suffered the pains of hell. I mean, when theologians have said that, they're right. The annihilationists say it means he was annihilated on the cross. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, they are not saying his divine nature was extinguished, but rather they are saying his human nature ceased to exist. This borders on crystallological heresy because in the great crystallological council of Calcedon in 451, the church fathers agreed that our Lord's incarnation was permanent and that his two natures are inseparable. The language was without division, without separation of his divine human nature. If that annihilationist understanding of the work of Christ is true, that's of Christ, then not only are his divine and human natures potentially separable, they were separated, and his human nature ceased to exist. This is not Peterson, a traditionalist, drawing out logical conclusions of annihilationism and saying, well, then therefore they would teach Jesus was annihilated. It's their own claim in light of trying to strengthen their case. Calcedon says Jesus was totally destroyed on the cross, again, giving him the benefit of the doubt. He means Jesus, dear, he wasn't destroyed, but his human nature was. If that is true, Calcedon was wrong, the human natures of Christ can come apart, they did, his humanity ceased to exist, and furthermore, unless they are prepared to deny that he is the God man now, his resurrection must have been another incarnation. Okay, you say, that all doesn't make sense, they shouldn't use that as one of their arguments, it kind of hurts their view. I agree. But is Jesus still on the cross? No. Well, then did he suffer eternal conscious punishment? Not literally, the Christian church has held from the beginning that he suffered a substitutionary death. That is, he suffered the equivalent of hell. How does it work? Well, I can't do this perfectly, but biblically, my understanding is in three hours on the cross, infinite finite God man suffered as our substitute. He took the equivalent of eternal conscious punishment, okay? God substituted the work of his infinite finite son, infinite with relevance to his divine nature, finite with relevance to his reference to his human nature. What I'm trying to say is that divine mathematics, if we need to talk like that, works something like this, an infinite person can suffer an eternal punishment in a finite period of time. Apparently, since he could say it is finished and father into your hands, I commit my spirit, by the way, there's no annihilation there. Death is the same for him as it is for every other human being except he's the God man. The abnormal separation of soul and body, his body remained on the cross, his human spirit inseparably joined to his divine nature, immediately went into God's presence. He said to the dying thief, today, I will be with you in paradise. The dying thief was not there in his body, and neither was Jesus. Is that help? The notion of a substitution. Yes, Jesus is not on the cross, still. If he were, he couldn't save anybody, so it was the father's will for the son to die as our substitute, as our vicar, he died of vicarious atonement. And because of his person, he was qualified in three hours to make atonement for everyone who would believe in him, for his people. He did so, and he suffered the pains of hell as his evidence by his asking at the cup of God's wrath be removed. It was not the father's will for it to be removed. He drank it to the bottom, as his evidence by his cry from the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Thus he suffered the wrath of God. He drank the cup. He suffered separation from the father's love. He was abandoned by the father, yes sir. Question is how does somebody like John's thought avoid that annihilationist understanding of the atonement? In great fairness to John's thought, for whom I have great respect, okay? And I regard this as an error in his teaching, a very unfortunate conclusion. I don't make apologies for him on it. He's wrong. Although I give him credit, he calls himself tentative in our own seminary journal in response to an article by a professor. He even said he's agnostic on it, okay? So he's not as strong as others. By any means, he hasn't written very much on it, half a dozen pages, in that debate book with David Edwards, Evangelical Essentials. So he hasn't spoken to that. I don't know of any place where he affirmed, so I'm not going to say he teaches that Jesus was annihilated. That would be incorrect. Let me quickly talk about the new earth and see if we still have time. After the eternal state, we talked about eternal punishment. There is a lake of fire. There is, and that's Revelation 21 and 22. Here's one of my arguments against universalism and annihilationism. If either of those views are true that everybody's saved or that the wicked are exterminated, then we need a Revelation 23 because it's the last two chapters of the Bible. Tell us about the end and it sure receives that they do. Revelation 21-1. I saw a new heaven and a new earth. We don't have the wicked ceasing to exist. Revelation 21-8 speaks of a lake of fire and people in it. Revelation 22-15 speaks of people being outside the city, so apparently they still exist. What I'm trying to say is, if universalism is true, then Revelation 21 and 22 are misleading, because they don't have everybody saved in the new earth, they've got a lake of fire, and they've got an outside to the city of God. Likewise, if annihilation is a mystery, we better have Revelation 23 telling us that, but we don't. What I'm trying to say is, those two views are not true, and it is not true that for God to be victorious, evil must be absolutely annihilated from his universe. Not according to God's word, evil just needs to be banished from the new heavens and new earth and condemned in the lake of fire. The biblical passages, we have some in both testaments that speak of a new earth. Isaiah 65 and 66 speak of this, a new heavens and a new earth. Romans 8 speaks of the removal of the curse, and the creation itself being redeemed. Second Peter 3 speaks of the destruction of the present earth and the renovation of a new heaven and earth, and I just read from Revelation 21-1, I saw a new heaven and a new earth, John could say. Here is the issue, is the present earth renewed and thus is continuity emphasized between present earth and new earth, or is the present earth totally destroyed, so as to exist no more, and the new earth to be understood as numerically, totally new and different. There has been debate in the reformed tradition. The Oliver Boswell taught the destruction, recreation theme, and Hukama, as you know, taught the renewal theme, perhaps it's hard to be absolutely dogmatic, but I would agree with Hukama and with Dr. David Jones, my colleague, that Romans 8, for example, 2021, presents the present creation as being set free from corruption. Oh, there is discontinuity, there seems to be an underlying continuity. I would also draw an analogy from our resurrection bodies to the new earth, even as there is both continuity and discontinuity between our present bodies and our resurrection bodies, so apparently there will be continuity and discontinuity between the present earth and the new earth. Those would be my reasons for agreeing with Hukama, and if that is true, then we have that whole notion of redeemed culture and so forth, which has played a big part in the reformed tradition, in which I frankly celebrate, I think it's a tremendous notion. Do you have other questions from your hell on trial reading for today? I won't ask you those usual questions about how you read it and all, because it's too embarrassing, but questions, in that case, let me give you a little information about the final exam, yes sir, let me give a little info about the final first, final examination will be a combination, work with your final examination sheet very carefully, comes right from there, I'm bound to that. It will be a combination of true and false, short answers, matching, defining things, that type of thing, matching true and false, list this, here in a couple of times you're asked to name passages, should I devote time memorizing lots of verses I would say no, I'd say devote your time to mastering the syllabus as directed by the final exam study sheet, you will have a Bible you can use, we'd like you to use unmarked English Bibles, can you use your trusty Bible really, we don't want you to if it has notes in it or whatever, so borrow one like yours without the notes or whatever, list, explain, true or false, match, match, match, explain, define, describe, describe, match, list and so forth, at times I will ask you application questions that are based, that will demonstrate not only your ability to give back things we talked about, but will test your understanding by asking how would it apply to such and such as such a situation and so forth, so we're talking to use the common parlance, an objective final with some little essays, two big, little paragraphs here and there you'll be writing, and with a view to testing your knowledge of the information, but also your ability to use it and applying it to your life and the lives of others.