DEGREES OF PUNISHMENT

One of the arguments for the need for hell is the that certain verses seem to teach degrees of punishment for the wicked. This would not be possible if the punishment were death. This position, however, does not follow from the language of the Bible as it pertains to judgment. Look at Psalm 69:27-28: "Add iniquity unto their iniquity; and let them not come into righteousness. Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous." Here we see that although the punishment is clearly extinction, we still store up wrath for ourselves as we sin. We're not adding to the severity of the punishment--just the certainty of it. We're sealing our doom. Romans 2:5 presents the same principle: "But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasureth up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of thee righteous judgment of God." This principle also applies to the righteous: "But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven...for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." Heaven is no better for Mother Teresa than for the thief on the cross, even though she spent her whole life laying up treasure in heaven, whereas the thief snagged it at the last possible moment. Likewise, hell is no worse for Hitler than for Ananias: hell is hell and heaven is heaven. We're told, however, to "strive to enter through the narrow gate" and to "make sure your election" (2 Peter 1:10), and to "lay up treasures in heaven" (Matt. 6:12), even as we are warned about "storing up wrath" and becoming "twice the child of hell" (Matt. 23:15) and receiving "the greater damnation" (Luke 20:47). Language like "the greater damnation" is paralleled by a statement like "whoesoever will be great among you, will be your minister" (Mark 10:43). It goes to the matter of certainty, not degrees.

DOUBLE DESTRUCTION

Jeremiah 16:18 states: "And first I will recompense their iniquity and their sin double..." This verse appears to be teaching retributive justice. Appearances, however, can be deceiving. Jeremiah 17:18 states: "Let them be confounded that persecute me...let them be dismayed...bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction." The destruction in view here is death (Jer. 25:33). God also uses the phrase double destruction in Rev. 18:6: "Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double her according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled to her double." The verse refers to Babylon (a representation, not a person), whose end is unquestionably extinction (Rev. 18:21). And yet the Bible says of her: "How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her" (Rev. 18:7). A precise, perfectly proportionate measure of retributive justice is being dispensed here, and the end is extinction. One cannot argue here, as traditionalists do regarding these types of verses, that this verse refers only to earthly punishment, whereas additional punishment remains to be dispensed; Babylon is not a person to be resurrected: her end is final. Thess. 2:16 also mentions the cup of God's wrath: "Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins always: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." Here again we encounter the principle of storing up wrath. What is that wrath? Psalm 75:8-10 states "For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red...but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them...All the horns of the wicked will I cut off." Drinking the wrath of the Lord's cup, which brings double destruction and wrath to the uttermost--language which suggests degrees of punishment--ultimately results in being cut off. The phrase cut off means killed, as we see in Psalm 88:5: "Free among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, whom thou rememberest no more: and they are cut off from thy hand."

The theme of the doubling of punishment is also found in Isaiah 40:2: "Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord's hand double for all her sins." On this pattern, a person receives double for their sins, and then is released from any further payment. The wages of sin is death; God doubles that payment with a second death. After that death, the payment is finished.

As already noted, the Bible intertwines the language of death and torment with a view toward death (Psalm 59:13, 83:17). In the Bible retributive justice works for extinction, not against it. In our imagination, retributive justice requires hell; in the Bible the ultimate expression of retributive justice is extinction.

REJECTING CHRIST

But isn't rejecting Christ a sin that calls for greater punishment? What about Hebrews 10:29: "Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be worthy, who has trodden underfoot the Son of God...?" The problem with this view is that it ignores the fact that all sin--past, present, and future--is against Christ. There's no other kind of sin! The following verses make that evident: 1 Peter 1:10-11: "Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently...searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ..." 1 Cor. 10:1-4: "I would that ye be not ignorant, how that all our fathers...drank the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them: and that rock was Christ." There's only one payment for sin. Christ is the "Lamb slain before the foundation of the world" (Rev. 13:8). He is the only way to the father (John 14:6). We know the salvation of a select few Old Testament figures came through Christ. What about the vast majority who were not saved? Who were they rejecting? If not Christ, then who?

But what about Hebrews 12:25: "See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more shall we not escape, if we turn from him that speaketh from heaven." Doesn't this verse teach that rejecting Christ demands a greater penalty? Not when we compare it to a similiar verse from the Old Testament. Psalm 95 states: "Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: when your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work." Look at the similarities between the two statements: both warn the listener to take heed, both offer examples of punishment for past disobedience, and both point to the extra personal nature of God's care and revelation as reasons to obey. Psalm 95 notes that they "tempted me, proved me, and saw my work" (9). In other words, how much more could God have done? He lived with them, going "before them by day in a pillar of a cloud...and by night in a pillar of fire..." (Exodus 13:21). Just as Christ became Immanuel (God with us), so God dwelled with ancient Israel. Again, the question must be asked: what's the difference between rejecting Christ now and rejecting Him then? Is it in the act of resisting the Holy Spirit? That's hardly something unique to the New Testament, as evidenced by Acts 7:51-53: "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost; just as your fathers did, so do ye." The same Spirit worked through the same God (Christ), to bring the same warnings (1 Peter 1:10-11). There's no justification for using the idea of "rejecting Christ" as evidence that there must be a place called hell where people suffer varying degrees of punishment.

DIFFERING REWARDS

Another aspect of God's judgment that's easy to misunderstand is how He rewards the just. Certain verses seem to teach differing rewards in heaven. 1 Cor. 3:13-15 states "Every man's work shall...be revealed with fire...If any man's work abide...he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burnt, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire." 2 John 1:8: "Look to yourselves, that we lose not the things that we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward." Matt. 5:19: "Whosoever shall break one of these least commandments...shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven..." These verses certainly do seem to teach differing rewards. This idea, however, directly contradicts everything the Bible tells us about salvation in Christ. Salvation in Christ consists of two things: a sin debt that is completely erased (Jude 1:24, Hebrews 12:23, Isaiah 1:18) and the righteousness of Christ that is imputed to the believer (1 Cor. 1:30, Heb. 10:14, 2 Cor. 5:21). If this is the case, where can there exist any room for difference? Does the efficacy of Christ's payment for sin, by which God forgives, differ from one person to the next?

"Is Christ divided?" (1 Cor. 1:13). Then how could the rewards differ? They can't. But sometimes God, when talking about judgment, employs language that proves deceptive if not carefully scrutinized.