Exposing the Greatest Lie Ever
Told
by Ken Eckerty
You have all heard
preachers and evangelists speak of the “Greatest Story Ever Told.” It is a story of love, of sacrifice, and of
“everlasting mercy.” It is a story that
has been told for over two thousand years with great passion and tears, and one
that has changed the lives of countless millions all over the world. This story, of course, is none other than
the story of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. On this website, you will hear of that story, but you are also
going to hear (maybe for the first time) another story. This story, like the other, is told with
equal passion—perhaps even more. This
story, unlike the other, is a lie. It
is the “Greatest Lie Ever Told” to man, and you might be very surprised to find
out where this lie comes from. It does
not come from those we would consider heathen, nor does it come from atheists,
or even those who are violently opposed to God and religion. No, this lie does not come from those we
would expect. The greatest lie the
world has ever heard comes straight from the very people who love and follow
Jesus Christ. It comes from our
pulpits, it is taught in our Sunday school classes, it is broadcast all over
the world through our television ministries, and it is preached by the
missionaries who are in the remotest places of the world.
Have I gotten your
attention yet? OK, so what is this
lie? It is the lie that says that God
will eternally torment most of His creatures; it is the lie that says that Jesus
Christ cannot save most men; it is the lie that says that death will continue
to exist forever, and it is the lie that says there will come a time when God
will never be able to show mercy and love to the majority of those He created. Yes, this is the lie of religion and it is
one that has all but consumed evangelical Christianity, so much so that the
Church’s message has become one of fear rather than one of love and
victory. It has taken the beautiful
judgments of God and turned them into a sadistic torture chamber, and worse
than this, it has made a miserable failure of the work of Jesus Christ in that
only a small minority of the billions of people who have ever lived will ever
see heaven. This website’s purpose is
two fold: 1) to proclaim the victory and power of the Cross of our Lord Jesus,
and 2) to expose the false doctrine of “eternal” punishment (as it is taught by
orthodox Christianity).
Why is it important that
we study the issue of the final destiny of man? Some people have told me
that this issue is not really pertinent to them because it focuses on future
things and our concern should be with the “here and now.” I absolutely agree that our focus should be
on the here and now which is why we need to seek out the heart of God on this
matter. However, I disagree that our conclusion on this matter in no way
affects the way we live. Understanding
this issue is extremely important because it will significantly affect how we
respond to those around us (both toward Christians and non-Christians alike),
and how we deal with adversity in our lives. Also, in order to be able to effectively minister to the
world with the gospel, we must know both the beginning and the end of
God’s plan for man.
In this essay, we are going
to ask four very important questions.
1. Do we desire to know what our Heavenly Father is really like?
2. How can
we overcome evil with good if God can’t do the same?
3. Do we
want to be sure that we are portraying God accurately to the world?
4. Do we desire
to take the right message to those who are perishing?
My intention in this
essay is not to present an exegetical argument against “eternal”
punishment. You will find more than enough resources on this website and
others that will expose the lie of “eternal torment.” My goal is to
simply introduce the importance of this subject and encourage the reader to
seek the truth for himself. It’s easy for us to take for granted certain
doctrines we’ve believed in our whole lives. Many times we become numb to
error because we hear the same thing preached over and over again in our
pulpits. But just because the majority believes something to be true,
that doesn’t necessarily make it so. Men like Martin Luther will attest
to that fact. There is always a risk in challenging traditional thinking
because it can put us in the uncomfortable position of standing alone—but we
need men of God who are willing to stand against tradition—alone if
necessary—in order to be a light in the midst of “religious” darkness. My
prayer is that God might grant to us the courage to seek after the truth, no
matter what the cost!
First of all, it should be our desire to know our Heavenly Father.
Jesus said in His glorious prayer in John 17,
And this is life
eternal, that they might get to know you, the only real God, and Him whom You
did send, Jesus Christ. (V. 3)
The Apostle Paul also
expressed this thought, That I may know Him, and the power of his
resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death,
(Phil. 3:10). It should be the desire of every one of God’s children
to get to know their Father in heaven.
Hannah Whitall Smith in
her book, The Unselfishness of God, said,
By the discovery of God,
therefore, I do not mean anything mysterious, or mystical, or
unattainable. I simply mean becoming acquainted with Him as one becomes
acquainted with a human friend; that is, finding out what is His nature, and
His character, and coming to understand His ways. I mean in short
discovering what sort of a Being He really is—whether good or bad, whether kind
or unkind, whether selfish or unselfish, whether strong or weak, whether wise
or foolish, whether just or unjust.
There is no better place
to find out what God is really like than to look at how He treats His wayward
creatures after they pass into the next age. What is God really like in
the ages to come? Will He be different then than He is now? Is He
really the way most have pictured Him—a God whose love and forgiveness is limited,
whose mercy ceases for most of those whom He created? Is it true that in
the next age God cannot reach out and extend mercy to the most pitiful of men?
There is a big
difference between being thrown into “eternal” torment to suffer endless pain
(which serves no purpose for the offender), and being punished for the purpose
of “bringing one to an end of himself” so as to lead him back to his
Father. Our answer on this matter will determine our views of God, and
consequently how we view and treat others around us. Is He cold,
unforgiving, and merciless to most of His creatures that reject Him here?
Will He only give “eternal” bliss to a small percentage of His offspring?
I’m a father of two
little girls. Both of my girls are very different. My oldest
daughter is stubborn and has a very strong will. It takes much to break
her (she’s just like her dad). My youngest is more sensitive and conforms
to my will a lot easier. As a father, I can’t deal with them in the same
way. For my oldest, I must use tough methods to break her of her
stubbornness, while the younger, I can get the same result using milder
methods. But in either case, my intended result is to get both of them to
conform to my will. And I will do whatever it takes to accomplish
this. But no matter what either of my children do, I love them both
equally the same. Everything I do for them is for the purpose of training
them to love and obey God. I have never punished either of them purely to
satisfy my own demands of justice. And while my children sin on a daily
basis (as all of us do), my goal in punishment has always been to correct their
behavior in order to see them mature into productive and responsible adults.
Is God, who is the Father
of all (Mal. 2:10; Acts 17:29), any different? If the Bible is true
when it says that God is love (1 Jn. 4:8), then can God do anything
distinct and separate from His love? We have perverted the love of God by
saying that God’s punishments are solely a demonstration of His justice.
Jonathan Edwards went so far as to say, “Hell is perfect hatred without
love.” What a perversion of the marvelous love of the Father! If
the majority of the Church is right and punishment will never end, then God
cannot love those to whom He torments forever. And if this is the case,
then Jonathan Edwards is right, and “eternal” punishment is simply a
demonstration of God’s justice without His love.
But I am here to argue
that God can do nothing apart from His love. Even His punishments serve a
purpose to the offender (Is. 4:4; 26:9). God is perfect holiness, and as
such, He must deal with sin. But He is also perfect love. So
anything God does must demonstrate both. We cannot separate God’s justice
from His love otherwise we create a schizophrenic god with two very different personalities.
Yet this is what most of the Church teaches. If hell is “eternal”, then
God has done something apart from His love. Why do I say that?
Because for love to really be love, some act must be accomplished toward
another person with no thought of itself. In other words, to say someone
loves, he must perform some act of love outside of himself, and then, it must
have the purpose of bettering that individual.
Even punishment must have the goal to better a person otherwise it is
not love.
Getting back to my
analogy of a parent. If I truly love my children, then every thing I do
to (and for) them will be for their betterment, not simply to satisfy my own
selfish desire for justice. So if I spank my children, as painful as it
is to them, it must be done with a desire to better them in some way. If
not, then I cannot say that I have truly loved them. 1 Corinthians 13 is
a beautiful description of how we are to manifest love.
Love is patient and
kind. Love knows neither envy nor jealousy. Love is not forward and
self-assertive, nor boastful and conceited. She does not behave
unbecomingly, nor seek to aggrandize herself, nor blaze out in passionate
anger, nor brood over wrongs. She finds no pleasure in injustice done to
others, but joyfully sides with the truth. She knows how to be silent.
She is full of trust, full of hope, full of patient endurance. (1 Cor. 4-7,
Weymouth NT)
So let me ask you then,
what is the purpose of “eternal” punishment? If God’s punishment never
ends, then what purpose does it hold for the offender? What betterment to
the sinner? The answer is none. And if there is no intent on
correcting the behavior of the offender, the only purpose it could serve would
be to either satisfy God’s own sense of justice or to teach the poor sinner an
“eternal” lesson. And in either case, this would be a selfish act
because he would be thinking solely of himself. Certainly God would not
have the best interest of the sinner at heart if His punishments continued without
end. And isn’t this what love is—being concerned for the welfare of
another? The very essence of love is the idea that it is purely
unselfish—it thinks not of itself (1 Cor. 13:8). If God acts in the
manner prescribed by orthodox Christianity, how then can this be love?
The idea of “eternal” hell shows that we believe in a god who acts simply to
satisfy his own need for justice and revenge. Therefore, this is an act
that cannot be considered love because it does not result in the betterment of
the sinner. And if this is the case, then God is not love, at least to
the great majority of those He torments “eternally.”
NOTE:
Some in the Church believe in the doctrine of annihilation. In contrast
to “eternal” torment, at least this view holds some element of love for the
offender. In this case, the poor sinner would be put out of his misery by
being totally destroyed. However, we believe it falls short of God’s
victory of the Cross.
No one would deny that
God loves all men. But if the Scripture is true when it says that God is
love, then God must love all men, not just in this short lifespan He gives us,
but also throughout the age of time and beyond! Didn’t Jesus Himself tell
us to love our enemies? Didn’t Paul teach us that if our enemies hunger
and thirst, we should give them food and drink? Does this only apply to a
man’s short lifespan on the earth? None of us doubt that those thrown
into the lake of fire are enemies of the Cross. But does not God love
even them? And if this is true, how will He manifest His love to them
while in the lake of fire? Or will He stop loving them and “eternally”
forsake them?
These are tough
questions, but they must be answered.
No matter how bad and
rebellious my children act, I could never punish them simply out of anger and
vengeance—for to do so would be selfish. And if I did, could it be said
that I truly loved my children? If I inflict severe pain on them simply
to teach them a lesson without exhorting them to improve, what kind of father
would I be? And what kind of Father would God be if He acted in this same
manner? Isn’t His love for us far greater than the love that earthly
parents have for their own children? Does He expect more from us than He
Himself is willing to do?
Do we serve a
schizophrenic god? Are there two different gods in the Bible—a god of
vengeance, and another of love? Which one describes the God you
worship? The god of the majority says that he is vengeful and hateful to
most of those he created. I say that our God cannot act as the majority
says. I say that our God cannot throw people in “eternal” hell and love
them at the same time. I say that God’s punishments always serve a
purpose to those who receive them.
Would you like to know
the heart of God as Jesus prayed and as Paul desired? Study to show
yourself approved!
Secondly, God has called us to be overcomers in this world. But how
are we to do this? The philosophy of the world is to overcome by strength
and might—do whatever it takes to get ahead—look out for number one, and if
that means hurting people climbing up the ladder of success, then so be
it. But is this to be our way? Do Christians overcome by strength
and shrewdness? Paul said,
If your enemy is hungry,
give him food; if he is thirsty, quench his thirst. For by doing this you
will be heaping burning coals upon his head. Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome the evil with goodness. (Rom 13:20, 21)
We are to overcome our
enemies by love and goodness. Isn’t this exactly how God dealt with
us?
Or is
it that you think slightingly of His infinite goodness, forbearance and
patience, unaware that the goodness of God is gently drawing you to repentance?
(Rom
2:4) Doesn’t God make his
sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the
unjust? (Matt 5:45) Why
does God do this? Why does He return evil with good? He does so
because He loves us and wants to bring us to repentance.
The perfect example in
Scripture of overcoming evil with good is the Cross. This is God’s
way. Paul said the Cross is foolishness to the world because it’s a
symbol of weakness and lowliness (1 Cor. 1). Instead of conquering the
world and all its evil through power and vengeance, the Lord chose the most
humiliating means anyone could ever imagine. The Cross is the perfect
picture of love. For God so loved the world that He gave His only
begotten Son…. This was God’s choice for how He would overcome
evil. It would not be through the strong arm of vengeance, but through
the goodness and love of the Cross. And it is this same path of
humiliation that our Lord commands us to trod. We will overcome the
world, the flesh, and the devil through the Cross—the perfect expression of
God’s goodness.
John Milton said, “He
who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe.” No one doubts
that God can subdue the world by force. Anyone who can speak this world
into existence with just a word can certainly wipe out all His enemies with the
same. And at the same time, anyone who is powerful enough to turn the
hearts of kings and use entire nations to accomplish His will, is also powerful
enough to win His entire creation by love. But by which way is God going
to reconcile the world? (Col. 1:20; Phil 2:10, 11) Will He accomplish it
by force or love? At the end of the day, when all has been reconciled to
God, what will we be able to say about the Creator; that He, with great force
and vengeance, suffered most of His creation to endless torments, or that He
overcame all that was evil in the world with eternal goodness, kindness, and
love? Which do you think is the greater work for an all-powerful,
sovereign God: forcing most of the world to bow in submission and then
tormenting them forever, or through the love of the Cross, win all His lost and
wayward children back to Himself again? Which do you think brings more
glory to God?
And what does that say
about how we are to live on this earth? If our God can’t overcome evil
with good, how can He expect us to do the same? When we are faced with
adversity, why should we respond in love, when our God, in the end, fails to do
the same? Why should we forgive seventy times seven when there will come
a time when God will not forgive most of those He created for ever and
ever? Why should we turn the other cheek and not render evil for evil,
when God, who is supposed to be good, renders evil with evil?
Andrew Jukes said,
For our views of God
re-act upon ourselves. By an eternal law, we must more or less be changed
into the likeness of the God we worship. If we think Him hard, we become
hard. If we think Him careless of men’s bodies and souls, we shall be
careless also. If we think Him love, we shall reflect something of His
loving-kindness.
How true this statement
is! I have seen this in my own life. If we worship a God who
torments most of His creation forever, then why shouldn’t we act the same
way? Most of the Church is so quick to judge and condemn others, but we
are unable to see that we are only acting out the theology we’ve embraced!
Thirdly, the doctrine of “eternal” torment maligns the character of
God, and portrays Him to be a God of limited forgiveness and love.
Some of us have been in
the unfortunate situation of having our reputations marred by malicious and
untrue statements. Perhaps the most painful of all is being falsely
accused by family or friends. There is nothing that hurts more than to be
stabbed in the back by someone dear to us. David certainly understood
this, as he writes in Psalm 55:12-13,
For it is not an enemy reproaching me; or I could bear it; it is
not the one who hates me who is magnifying himself against me; or I would hide
myself from him. But it is you, a man of my rank, my friend and my
associate.
Our Lord Jesus certainly
understood the pain of being forsaken, for it was only John and a few women who
stood with Him in His final hours on the Cross.
If you’ve never
experienced the pain of being forsaken by someone you love, or felt the hurt of
being falsely accused by a dear friend, you may not be able to fully understand
the point I am about to make. While most of us would quickly come to the
rescue of a friend who has been on the receiving end of such an injustice, we
don’t realize that we are guilty of doing the same terrible injustice to our
Heavenly Father. The doctrine of “eternal” torment misrepresents the
character of God who is pure love and forgiveness. “Eternal” punishment
says that God’s love will fail for most of His creatures, His forgiveness has
an expiration date, and He either can’t or won’t show mercy beyond the
grave. Even if someone in “hell” were to cry out for God to show mercy
and beg Him to give them another chance, this hard and calloused god will
simply turn away, ignoring their cries as if he’d never heard them.
Most of us have never
studied this “tradition” to see if it is indeed taught in the Word of
God. However, I would be willing to bet that most of us are uncomfortable
with this common teaching believed by most of the Church. And very few
stand up and preach this doctrine with enthusiastic fervor. There is good
reason for this. How long is
“eternal?” L. Ray Smith writes:
Picture yourself being
burned and tortured without relief and without any hope for trillions of
centuries. Well, of course, we humanly cannot imagine such torture for
such a long period of time--our minds and our emotions are incapable of
it. If any sane Christian could witness, even for a few hours or a few
days, the kind of hideous torture presented by Christian doctrine, I believe he
would seriously reconsider whether a loving God is capable of such sadistic
punishment. Try to imagine this torture for most of the human race,
continuing for trillions upon trillions of centuries. Try this: A grain of sand
contains millions and millions of atoms. Imagine that every atom in the known
physical universe represents a trillion centuries of torture in Hell. It
would thus take billions of trillions of centuries just to complete the atoms
in a single grain of sand. Now imagine going to the second grain of sand,
the third, the seven hundred and eighty ninth billion grain of sand, then all
the atoms in the Earth, our Milky Way Galaxy, the next closest galaxy, the next
billion closest galaxies, etc., etc., ONE ATOM (a trillion centuries) AT A
TIME! How far into eternity do you suppose such a mind-warping number of
centuries would take us? It would take us NOWHERE into eternity! Victims
of such a heretical teaching as eternal torment would be NO closer to the end
of their ordeal after all these trillions upon trillions of centuries than when
they began. They would not be ONE SECOND closer to the end of their
suffering.
Oh, how blind and
hard-hearted we have become to think that our God could do such a horrible
thing! God’s judgments that are designed to bring men to an end of
themselves are one thing, but “eternal” misery and torture is something quite
different. Shame on us for first, not even questioning whether such a
doctrine could be true, and secondly, for being lazy and content with accepting
what our church leaders have taught us without doing the study required to
determine the real truth of God’s great love for all men.
How God must be grieved
to see His own people telling lies about Him. How we hate when lies are
told about us. How much more our Father in heaven must hurt because of
the way we portray Him to men. At Golgotha, two thieves were crucified
with Jesus, one on each side. One thief mocked Christ, while the other
defended Him. The doctrine of “eternal” torment mocks the work of Christ
and the love of God. Which “thief” will you be today? Will you
continue to mock the character of God by continuing to teach this lie or will
you come to the defense of the gospel and proclaim the real truth about God and
His Son Jesus.
Lastly, we must ask ourselves, what “gospel” are we taking to the
world? What is the good news that Paul tells us to proclaim?
And all things are from
God, the One having conciliated us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and having
given to us the ministry of conciliation, as, that God was in Christ
conciliating the world to Himself, not charging their deviations to them, and
having put the Word of conciliation in us. Then on behalf of Christ, we
are ambassadors, as God is exhorting through us, we beseech on behalf of Christ,
Be conciliated to God. (2 Cor. 5:18-20)
Our message to the world
is not that they need to “accept” Jesus Christ or they will suffer the
consequences of “eternal” torment. We are to go forth and tell the world
that they have been conciliated to God through Christ and that God is not
charging their sins to them. We are to exhort them to be conciliated back
to God. This is the message of ambassadorship that we are to carry to the
world.
Paul spoke to the
philosophers at Mars Hill in Acts 17:31 and warns them of a coming
judgment. I do believe we would be incomplete in our representation of
God if we failed to warn men (including Christians) that there are consequences
for sin. Paul’s message to these philosophers was that God is strictly
commanding all men everywhere to repent. (V. 31) However, there is a big
difference between warning men of a coming day when God will judge all men
(which He most certainly will), and that the consequence of not accepting Jesus
Christ is “eternal” torment in flames of fire. The latter is not the
gospel. The gospel of God in Christ is that God has conciliated the world
(not just Christians) to Himself through the blood of His Cross. Paul
tells us in 1 Tim. 4:10 that Christ is the Savior of all men, especially those
who believe. When was the last time you heard an evangelist tell
unbelievers that Jesus Christ is their Savior and that God has conciliated them
to Himself, and is not charging their sins to their account? When?
Our message is to implore them to be conciliated to the Father in Christ—in
order that full reconciliation can take place, not so that they will burn in
“eternal” flames if they don’t accept Christ. This is not the message of
an ambassador of the good news. This was not Paul’s message to the
nations, and it is not to be ours. I believe the doctrine of “eternal”
torment has done more harm in turning people off to the gospel than any other
false doctrine the Church has embraced. It is a blasphemous lie that
maligns the character of God and weakens the work of Christ. It is high
time to “study to show ourselves approved” that we may know the truth of the
“full” gospel of God in Christ.
In conclusion, I have tried to set forth the reasons why I believe we need to
re-think this doctrine of “eternal” punishment. My hope and prayer is
that I have helped you to see the necessity of seeking the Lord on this
critical issue. There are many study resources available to help you in
your search for the truth. Write me at savior-of-all@cox.net for more
information.
Today, we have so-called
ministers of the “good news” who are spreading false accusations about God and
His ways. They are threatening the world with the fear of “eternal”
punishment if they don’t accept Jesus. Some unbelievers I’ve talked to
are thinkers and have thought through the message we’re presenting to them—and
you know what—it’s not flying with them. I know people who have forsaken
Christianity because of this false doctrine of never-ending punishments.
I know dear saints who’ve had nervous breakdowns because they were honest
enough to really think through what the Church teaches on this issue. The
rest of us (myself included) have simply accepted this “tradition of men” as
truth. It was Adolph Hitler who said, “Tell a lie long enough, loud
enough, and often enough and people will start to believe you.”
I will close this essay
with a short quote by Andrew Jukes in his book The Restitution of All Things.
It is not for me to
judge God’s saints who have gone before. Their judgment is with the Lord,
and their work with their God. But when I think of the words, not of the
carnal and profane, but even of some of God’s dear children in that long night,
when “the beast” which looked “like a lamb, but spake as a dragon,” had dominion; when
I find Augustine saying, that “though infants departing from the body without
baptism will be in the mildest damnation of all, yet he greatly deceives and is
deceived who preaches that they will not be in damnation,” meaning thereby unending
punishment; or Thomas Aquinas, that “the bliss of the saved may please them
more, and they may render more abundant thanks to God for it, that they are
permitted to gaze on the punishment of the wicked;” or Peter Lombard, that “the
elect, while they see the unspeakable sufferings of the ungodly, shall not be
affected with grief, but rather satiated with joy at the sight, and give thanks
to God for their own salvation;” or Luther, that “it is the highest degree of
faith to believe that God is merciful, who saves so few and damns so many; to
believe Him just, who of His own will makes us necessarily damnable;”
…When I remember that
such men have said such things, and that words like these have been approved by
Christians, I can only fall down and pray that such a night may not return, and
that where it yet weighs on men’s hearts the Lord may scatter it.
“Jesus wept.” (Jn. 11:35)