Transcript & Slides: Fear Eternal Fire (Jude)

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Fear Eternal Fire (Jude)
By David Feddes

We're continuing our study of God's message to us in Jude. In a previous message, we heard the call to fight for the faith and the challenge and danger that is presented by false teachers who sneak into the church and spread their teaching about how to live as well as what to believe. We saw the need to be ready to contend for the faith that God has given once for all—the revealed body of truth that God has entrusted to us. Jude has a couple of other strands besides that call to fight for the faith and to recognize the challenge from bad teaching. Running throughout Jude is also the theme of the consequences of following such teaching and being led astray. That is the call to be aware, and not only aware, but to fear God's judgment—to fear eternal fire. Then the third strand of Jude, which we’ll look at in a future message, is the call to keep being kept: the wonderful promise that God does keep us and preserve us, and at the same time the obligation to build ourselves up in our most holy faith and keep ourselves in the love of God.

Today we want to focus on that strand of judgment—the eternal fire that the Lord reveals in speaking through Jude. Jude says, “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago…” (Jude 1:3-4). You see there already that word of judgment. The first thing he says about these men is that they’re doomed. They’re condemned, and that condemnation was written about long ago—about the kind of people who teach or follow such things.

These men who are doomed have secretly slipped in among you. They’re godless men who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. A couple of things to notice about these men: one is that a characteristic of them is that they use a truth to generate a falsehood. They say, “God is gracious. God is kind. God is loving. Therefore, God is too nice to hurt a fly, too soft to punish anybody.” So there are people who are godless, but they use the teaching of God’s grace to say, “Do as you please and don’t worry about the results. God is nice.”

You find again and again in the church and in society at large that wherever sin is being promoted—whether that sin is false belief about God (for instance, denying that Jesus is the Son of God or denying other important truths about God) or denying what God teaches us about how to live—you’ll find that false teaching is almost always accompanied by a softening of the word of judgment. This happened through the false prophets. When Jeremiah was warning the people that devastating judgment was about to come on Judea and Jerusalem, the false prophets went against him. People liked those false prophets because they always had a smile on their face, a cheery story to tell, and a promise that God was going to rescue Jerusalem, that he was going to make all things happy—even though the people still had idols sitting right in the temple area. Things were still going to go well for them, they said.

Even though they had idols in the temple area, God said of them, “These are false prophets. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace. They heal the wound of my people lightly” (Jeremiah 6:14). They pretend there’s no serious wound and say, “All is well, everybody’s healthy. Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. Beware of somebody who comes with only a sweet and cheery message 24/7, whose only emphasis is on positive thinking. We’ve had our share of positive-thinking preachers in America in recent decades. It’s okay to be positive about what God says is positive and about his wonderful promises, but if you never hear the word “sin,” if you never hear of God’s judgment—or in fact you hear open denials of God’s judgment—you can be sure that person is not speaking from God. You can be pretty sure that the way of life they are promoting is not the straight and narrow path that the Lord Jesus Christ lays out for his people to live.

Church leaders who defend immorality also distort doctrine. You see that inevitably, especially since the sexual revolution promoted in the 1960s. You see many people, even in the church, who have a son or daughter that has chosen a particular way of life, and they say, “Oh, I’ve come to see things in a new light. I’ve come to see that it’s okay for people now to live together without being married. I’ve come to see that what I used to call immoral isn’t immoral after all.” Again and again, you’ll find that where there’s been immoral behavior, either by the person or by somebody close to them, they’ll tweak their doctrine accordingly.

We need to be warned again that preachers of “grace, grace, grace” without ever preaching judgment are people who don’t know the real and living and true God, because the real and living and true God is the judge of all the earth as well as the source of love and grace. Jude says that people who think and teach this way and behave this way deny Jesus, our only Sovereign and Lord.

How do they deny him? They reject his authority. Jesus has told us his will in many different areas of life, and those who change that are denying Jesus’ right to tell us what to do. We don’t like to be told what to do, but Jesus tells us what to do. God gives his commands to direct us in his paths. If we deny his authority to tell us what to do, we’re denying him as our Sovereign and Lord. If we deny God’s holiness and say, “God is not the consuming fire; he is not the one whom no one can look at and live, whom no sinful eye can see without perishing” (Deuteronomy 4:24; Exodus 33:20), then we just don’t know God as he really is.

Jesus has said he’s going to return to judge the living and the dead (Matthew 25:31-46). The Apostles’ Creed confesses that God appointed Jesus and declared who he was by raising him from the dead to be the judge (Acts 17:31). So again, to deny judgment—to deny the return of Christ to sit on his throne of judgment—is to not know the living and true God.

To summarize: ethics and shifts in doctrine go together. Teaching about how to behave and what God will do if we reject him and disobey him and do not seek forgiveness through Jesus’ blood—those go together. Whenever you see somebody shifting the whole notion of how Christian people ought to live to something that the church throughout the ages never taught, you’re almost always also going to see a shift in whether they think God judges at all.

Jude says, “These people changed the grace of God into a license for immorality, but their condemnation was written about long ago.” Then he starts to give some examples. He says, “Though you already know all this,” and he goes on to mention a number of different events and people from the history of Israel. “Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt” (Jude 1:5). What a wonderful deliverance—when God rescued them from slavery, parted the Red Sea, brought them through safely, and then, when those evil armies pursued them, brought the sea back over them and wiped out their enemies. What a wonderful rescue!

“The Lord delivered his people out of Egypt but later destroyed those who did not believe” (Jude 1:5). Those people were rescued from Egypt and yet ended up being judged—the very people who were rescued. Something happened between the great rescue and entering the promised land. Many of you know the story. They were brought through the wilderness and came near the borders of the promised land. Moses told the tribes to each send one person—twelve total—to spy out the land. The question wasn’t whether they should take the land; they already knew that God had given it to them and promised it to them. They were simply to check out what it was like and bring back a report.

They came back saying, “It’s a fantastic land—tremendous clusters of grapes, a beautiful land, fantastic! There’s just one problem: we can’t take it. The enemies there are too big and too strong. We’re just insects compared to them.” Then they wanted to stone Moses for leading them out of Egypt in the first place. The twelve spies had given their report. Two of them, Joshua and Caleb, said, “Let’s go in and take the land,” but the people wouldn’t listen. They wanted to stone the leaders.

Then God showed up. The pillar of cloud and fire appeared, and God revealed his might and power. The ten spies who didn’t believe were instantly dead. Then God said, “You didn’t believe, so your children will enter the promised land, but you won’t.” He gave them forty years to wander in the wilderness, and during those forty years all of them died except for the children they said would never enter the land. Those children did enter the land. It was a terrible judgment on people who had been rescued and yet would not believe God’s promises.

It’s a terrible thing to live between two great moments of God’s history and not believe in the Lord. We live after the time of the great deliverance worked by Jesus Christ in his life, death, and resurrection. We live on the edge of the time when Jesus comes again and the promised land is open to us. If we don’t put our faith in the God who gives the promised land and follow his ways, it’s possible to perish despite the fact that Jesus came with such a mighty salvation. That’s the warning: “The Lord delivered his people out of Egypt but later destroyed those who did not believe” (Jude 1:5).

Do you believe? Do you have faith in this living God? That’s the key to escaping such a judgment.

Then Jude goes on to another story of judgment: “The angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day” (Jude 1:6). This might refer to one of two different incidents. One is the original fall of the angels. God created amazing beings that we only vaguely understand from what the Bible says about them. He created a great host of mighty spirits who lived with him, saw his glory, and carried out his purposes. Then one of the greatest and most brilliant of them led a rebellion against God and left his proper place. “Satan” is the title given to the leader of that rebellion.

There are many fallen angels who left the place God gave them, and in their rebellion against God they were cast down. Some who read this passage think it might refer to a different incident involving angels who left their proper position and came down to the daughters of men, as Genesis 6 is sometimes understood to describe—where angels interacted with women and produced terrible offspring. Whether that is the case or not, the reference is to angels who were supposed to be loyal to God—created to live in his presence—splendid beings who didn’t stay where they were supposed to and went against God.

What happened to them? The Bible says, “These he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day” (Jude 1:6). God has these fallen angels captured within his scope of authority, and on the great day of judgment they will receive the final punishment that they have coming to them. Once again Jude is saying, don’t think you’re immune to judgment. If even the great and glorious angels who rebelled against God are subject to judgment, do you think you’ll get a pass if you rebel against God?

Then he gives a third example: “In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion” (Jude 1:7). We know from Genesis 19 that the men of Sodom and Gomorrah were very wicked, very violent in their sexuality. Many were involved in homosexuality. They gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. What happened? God sent fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah and wiped them out. “They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7).

Throughout the Bible, this picture of the fire of God’s judgment comes again and again in various ways. But Sodom and Gomorrah were a literal example of that fire which wiped those cities out. They serve as an ongoing example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

Now in these three examples Jude gives to start out with in speaking about judgment, notice this: the privileged perish. It’s not just people who had no access to God or were the castaways. Very often the castaways are better off in the Bible because God brings them back. But those who had tremendous positions of privilege or opportunity can still perish.

The Israelites saw these amazing miracles and were destroyed for their unbelief. The angels enjoyed God’s very presence and yet rebelled and were terribly punished. Sodom had wonderful privileges. The Bible says it was like the garden of the Lord (Genesis 13:10)—almost like the Garden of Eden all over again where Sodom was situated. If you go there now, it’s a blasted wasteland—nothing to look at but salt and ugliness. But it was once a beautiful, almost paradise-like place. For their vile immorality, what seemed heavenly and like paradise became hellish. That’s a terrible warning: if you have tremendous privilege, don’t say, “Well, that just means I’m one of God’s favorites!” The Bible says you’re judged more severely when you’ve been given greater privileges and have rebelled against the Lord.

Jude goes on to talk about these teachers and says, “What things they understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals, are the very things that destroy them” (Jude 1:10). Again, the word “destroy” appears—we’re talking about various dimensions of judgment. Destructiveness, ruin, perishing, or being destroyed are often how the Bible describes it. Sometimes it is the very sin itself that does the destroying. Sometimes it’s pictured as God sending a terrible judgment. Sometimes it’s pictured as God simply letting sin be what it is until it wrecks, ruins, and destroys you.

That’s the picture in Romans 1, where again and again we find those chilling words: “God gave them over.” The wrath of God is revealed when God simply gives you over to do your thing. As you do your thing, you get worse and worse. Your circumstances get worse and worse. In some ways, maybe even hell is just God letting you be you—letting you degenerate and degenerate. The very things that destroy them are the things they follow by their own sinful instincts.

“Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion” (Jude 1:11). That word “woe” is one of the most terrible words in the Bible—something awful is coming upon them. Jude gives three additional examples: Cain, Balaam, and Korah. If you don’t know the Old Testament, that might just go over your head, but let’s look at what the Bible actually says.

“They have taken the way of Cain.” What is the way of Cain? Cain was a religious man of sorts, as was his brother Abel. They both wanted to bring an offering to God and sought his favor and approval. The Bible says Abel brought from his flocks a sacrifice to God, while Cain, being a farmer, brought some of the produce from his fields. God accepted Abel’s sacrifice but not Cain’s—and Cain knew it. He didn’t like it.

There was a problem, but Cain knew it couldn’t possibly be with himself—it must be with God. God came to Cain and said, “Why are you angry? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:6-7). There was something wrong with Cain’s offering—perhaps he refused to offer the animal sacrifice God required, or perhaps his heart attitude and lack of faith were the issue. Whatever it was, Cain came to God wrongly, and God rejected his offering. Cain knew it, and he was furious.

But Cain thought, “The real problem isn’t me—it’s God. Why should God like my brother better than he likes me?” So he decided to kill his brother. That was the way of Cain. He knew better than God. He was angry when God wasn’t on the same page as he was. He assumed God must be the one with the problem. He knew his brother was different and hated him for it. He wanted him gone—and he killed him.

Then God came to Cain and said, “Where is your brother Abel?” Cain answered, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9). Maybe he wasn’t his brother’s keeper, but he didn’t have to be his brother’s killer either. That’s the way Cain was wired: “I don’t have to take care of him. I do what I want.” Then God said, “Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground” (Genesis 4:10). “Don’t think you’ve gotten away with this. I saw what you did. I hear his voice, the voice of that blood crying out right now. You are going to be a restless wanderer on the earth” (Genesis 4:11-12).

God didn’t give Cain the death penalty right away. Instead, he sentenced him to wander—to never be at home anywhere again. That’s another terrible revelation of the kind of judgment God can send: to always be restless, never at peace, never satisfied or at rest. That was the way of Cain—and the judgment upon him.

Then Jude says, “They have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error” (Jude 1:11). Balaam was the man who argued with a donkey—and that right there is not an act of extreme wisdom. When your donkey starts talking to you, it’s time to listen, not to argue back! Balaam had been told by God not to go to help King Balak or to prophesy against Israel, but to stay home. Yet Balaam wanted to go. Eventually God let him go.

On the way, the angel of the Lord came to kill Balaam, standing in the road with a drawn sword. The donkey had better vision than Balaam and stopped. Balaam got mad and started beating the donkey to make her go on. The donkey didn’t want to walk up to that angel with the drawn sword, so she turned aside and crushed Balaam’s leg against a wall. Balaam got even angrier and started whipping the donkey harder. Then the donkey lay down, and Balaam was furious.

Then the donkey said, “Why are you beating me?” Balaam said, “If I had a sword, I’d kill you.” Not exactly a bright man. Then the Lord opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel with the sword drawn. Did he turn around and head home? No. He kept going. But now he had to bless Israel three times instead of cursing them.

When it was all over, Balaam still didn’t get paid. So he figured out another way. He told King Balak, “If you can get your women to mingle with the Israelites, get them involved with idol worship and immorality, they’ll bring a curse on themselves, even if I can’t pronounce it.” And that’s exactly what happened. It brought great trouble on Israel.

What became of Balaam? The Israelites killed him with the sword in one of the later battles (Numbers 31:8). Balaam, instead of getting a payday, got the real payday he had coming—death. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). That’s one of the most common ways the Bible describes God’s judgment—death, and all that’s involved in dying under God’s judgment.

So, woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain. They have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error—and that resulted in death.

“They have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion” (Jude 1:11). Korah was one of the leaders of Israel, a Levite. The Levites already had high responsibilities—they tended to the various things associated with the tabernacle, the place of worship. But that wasn’t enough for Korah. He and his followers said, “Why should Aaron and his family be the only priests who get to go into the Holy of Holies? Why should they be the ones who offer the holy incense and not us? All God’s people ought to be able to do that” (Numbers 16).

They were upset that Aaron and Moses had special positions of leadership. Moses was hurt by that and upset—but so was God. So they said, “Let’s have a test. Korah, you and the 250 men who think you have the right to rebel against the leadership of Moses and Aaron—each of you bring your censer with fire in it, and come toward the presence of the Lord at the same time as Moses and Aaron.” Then God came with his pillar of fire and said, “Get away from Korah, Dathan, and Abiram and the 250 men. Get away from their tents.”

Then the earth opened up, and Korah, his family, and those who were the ringleaders with him fell down into the earth, and fire came from God and burned up the 250 men who had the censers of fire. That’s what Jude means when he says, “They have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.” The earth swallowed them, and fire burned up the rest of them. What a terrible picture again of divine judgment—where the earth opens and swallows, and fire consumes. That’s why Jude says, “Woe to people who are facing such a judgment.”

Then he gives a list of descriptions of these false teachers: “They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever” (Jude 1:12-13).

Just hear those phrases: twice dead. The Bible speaks of “the second death,” which is also called “the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14). It speaks of shame and everlasting contempt. In Daniel, it says, “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). So when Jude says they are “foaming up their shame,” that’s not just part of what’s bad about them—that’s part of their judgment too.

They are “wandering stars for whom blackest darkness has been reserved.” That image of darkness—Jesus often referred to God’s final judgment as “outer darkness,” where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25:30). These are different images, and you can’t fit them all together neatly—it’s hard to have darkness with fire. Yet there is something about fire that reveals God’s judgment, and something about terrifying darkness where you can see nothing—no light, no hope. Blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

“Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: ‘See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him’” (Jude 1:14-15). That emphasis again—how ungodly these people are, how godless. But then comes the judgment: God judges and convicts and, as Jude said earlier, condemns. That’s a verdict. That’s another terrible part of judgment—not just darkness or fire, but the verdict of the one whose opinion alone ultimately matters.

We worry about what people think of us, but what God thinks of us matters far more. If he judges and convicts, that is a terrible thing. Aside from whatever punishments or pains may accompany it, to hear the voice of God say, “I am against you. You have been my enemy. I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23)—that may be the worst thing of all about judgment.

So when you look at Jude, here are some of the pictures of judgment: to fear God’s judgment, to fear eternal fire; to be condemned by God’s verdict; to be destroyed, to perish, to be ruined; to be bound in everlasting chains; to face eternal fire as Cain did restlessness and wandering; to be swallowed up as Korah was; to be twice dead—the lake of fire, shame and everlasting contempt, utter darkness, the outer darkness forever.

There’s a variety of images and ways of picturing this, but no matter how it’s described in Jude or elsewhere in the Bible, it is a terrible, terrible judgment.

And this is what false teachers deny—and you can see why. Who likes to hear anything of this sort? “My God would never do that,” is a phrase you’ll sometimes hear. Yes, he probably wouldn’t—because your god is one you made up. But there’s a real one too. There are always the fake gods people invent, but then there’s the real God. And if you take the Bible at all to be God’s Word, then we need to recognize that we can’t simply deny final punishment.

Here are three overarching groups of people who tend to deny it. One is naturalism. Naturalism says there really is no supernatural God at all. Everybody dies, and when you die, you’re dead. There’s no reward after death, no punishment after death. It’s just over. “Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die” (1 Corinthians 15:32). Have a blast while you last—that’s it. Naturalism denies judgment by denying that any such judge or creator even exists.

A different approach says, “Yes, there is a God—but nobody really knows who he or she is. All paths lead to him (or her, or it), and it all turns out well because this being—whoever it is—likes people like us and will make sure things end happily for someone like me.” This is pluralism—the notion that all roads eventually lead to God, whoever he or she may be, and lead to heaven or bliss or joy. Again, it’s the attitude of “my god would do that,” if I get to invent my god and you get to invent yours, and they all turn out to be the same. You’ll hear it said, “All religions worship the same god.” They don’t.

Then there is a kind of Christian version sometimes called theological liberalism. It’s been around for about two hundred years—longer in some respects. The notion arose that the Bible is not the Word of God, that Jesus is not really divine but just a great leader, prophet, and inspirational figure. That emphasis—especially in churches and seminaries—focused on the “universal fatherhood of God” and the “universal brotherhood of man.”

Well, in one sense, God is the Father of us all in that he made us all. But the Bible teaches that apart from God’s regenerating grace—apart from being born again through faith in Jesus—people are “children of the devil” (John 8:44). Jesus said so. So we can’t talk about the universal fatherhood of God as though everything turns out well apart from the saving grace of God in Jesus Christ. But theological liberalism insists that God won’t punish.

H. Richard Niebuhr described liberalism this way: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.”

The Bible teaches that people are sinful, that God does judge, and that the only way to be delivered is through the cross of Christ and his precious blood shed there. So we should be aware that these are three of the biggest denials of final punishment—naturalism, pluralism, and theological liberalism—and that they often seep in, in various ways, to Christian thinking. You’ll see concessions made to the philosophy of naturalism, which denies the supernatural, in how some people view Scripture—insisting that nothing really miraculous happens. You’ll see more and more people argue that different paths can lead to God, without accounting for the fact that Jesus said there is a broad road that leads to destruction, and many follow it, and a narrow road that leads to life, and only a few find it (Matthew 7:13-14).

The notion that God won’t punish is denied by the entire Scripture. The Bible speaks of eternal fire. Jude says that the fallen angels are “bound with everlasting chains” (Jude 1:6). Sodom and Gomorrah “serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7). Jude’s half brother, Jesus, the Lord of glory, will say, “Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). It is impossible to deny eternal fire if you believe the voice of the Son of God.

What is involved in eternal fire? Christians throughout history have had at least three different views. These three views are not held equally by the same number of Christians, but they reflect three different understandings of what fire does.

Fire, for one, refines—it purifies. When you melt down gold or silver, you get rid of what is impure so that only what is good remains. Universalism says that’s what the eternal fire does. God does punish, and there are terrible consequences for sin after death, but in the end, when punishment has run its course and people have seen what sin really is, the inescapable love of God claims them—even the devil and his fallen angels. God brings all things together again through the forgiveness that comes through Jesus’ blood.

A second view, conditionalism or conditional immortality (sometimes called annihilationism), emphasizes that fire destroys—that’s what fire does: it burns things up. This view says people will be raised again, God will judge them, and they will suffer conscious punishment for their sins. Then, when that is done, God will wipe them out—they will vanish and never exist again. Conditionalism is called that because it teaches conditional immortality: there is no such thing as an immortal soul automatically. That idea came from Greek philosophy. Immortality is something God gives as a gift in Jesus Christ. If you don’t have Jesus Christ, you don’t have immortality and won’t exist forever. You will be raised, punished as the Bible says, and then burned up and destroyed completely. A number of Christians hold this view.

The third view, traditionalism—the one held by most Christians throughout the centuries—understands fire as torment. It teaches that people continue to exist in unending conscious existence forever and ever, suffering because they are without God.

So, to summarize:

·       Universalism says the unsaved suffer, are purified, and are ultimately saved. Some of the early church fathers who believed this included Origen and Gregory of Nyssa—great theologians and holy men in many respects.

·       Conditionalism says the unsaved are judged, punished, and then burned up. Some contemporary proponents include Edward Fudge, author of The Fire That Consumes, and John Stott, a major Christian leader of the twentieth century.

·       Traditionalism says the unsaved suffer unending conscious torment. This was the view of Augustine, Calvin, Luther, and many other great fathers and reformers throughout church history.

Why would anyone believe universalism in light of all the passages about judgment? You might think they must be deluded, but you do have to read the whole Bible. Scripture says remarkable things about the scope of salvation and the magnitude of God’s love. Jesus said, “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself” (John 12:32). Paul wrote of “the mystery of God’s will, which he purposed in Christ, to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ” (Ephesians 1:9-10).

Those who hold to universalism see this tremendous love of God and can’t imagine how anyone could ever end up outside the scope of God’s purpose to bring all things under one head. Thomas Talbott, one of the philosophers who defends this view most powerfully, wrote The Inescapable Love of God. His argument is that in the end you can’t escape God’s love—it will win. God’s love will reach everyone, even Satan, and reconcile all things to himself “whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:20).

The evangelical or Christian universalist does not believe that everybody simply gets to heaven no matter what. They believe it all happens through Jesus’ blood and in fulfillment of God’s purposes. It may take eons—since the Greek word aionios (“eternal”) can also mean “age-long.” So, in this view, it could take countless ages for God’s love to finally win over someone, destroy their rebellion, and draw them to himself. But eventually, because of the cross and the power of God’s love, he gets them. As Romans 11:32 says, “God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”

I want you to feel the force of that view—not to deny what the Bible says about punishment, but to feel the power of the magnitude of God’s love and the almost unimaginable difficulty of believing that anyone could end up forever outside of it. There is something very distressing and difficult about this tension: the wonder of what God has purposed in love, and the reality that others could end up under his judgment.

When I was in seminary, I wrote a hundred-page paper on this subject. I won’t give you the whole thing, but I can say this: it is a hard matter. There’s a part of me that’s very attracted to that view—a part that hopes it turns out to be true, that God saves everybody and wins in the end. And yet, I don’t think it would be wise or proper to proclaim such a view, because the Bible does not seem to hold out to the wicked the notion that it’s all going to turn out okay.

But let me just say that even if you were to be an evangelical universalist, this would not be a matter of taking sin lightly. George MacDonald, one of C. S. Lewis’s mentors, was a universalist. Lewis did not follow him in that belief, but one of George MacDonald’s greatest sermons on universalism is titled The Consuming Fire. In it he writes about what a terrible thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God and how horrible it would be to die without God and have to spend eons discovering the horror of your sin—and only then to be captured by the love of God.

So don’t think that every Christian universalist—like Gregory of Nyssa, Origen, or Thomas Talbott—takes the judgment of God lightly. Even if they turned out to be right, it would not be a light thing to fall into the hands of the living God, into the hands of the consuming fire (Hebrews 10:31). Even if that view were true—and I don’t teach or believe that the Bible teaches it—it would still be terrible.

Would you put it this way? In this life, even if you believed that you were someday going to be saved and go to glory, would you go looking for trouble? Would you say, “Oh, it would only be a decade of misery, suffering, and horror—of rotten relationships, of feeling like life was not worth living, of living in darkness, misery, and pain. I’m not worried about that at all”? If it were only a decade, you’d still be scared to death of it. And even a universalist would say it’s going to be a lot more than a decade, and a lot more difficult than you think—even if you believed that God was eventually going to save the devil.

Now, you have universalism, and then you have conditionalism. Conditionalism is held by more people and has more biblical substance behind it. It says the unsaved are judged and punished for whatever period of time they deserve, and then they’re burned up and gone forever. The Bible uses words like destruction, perishing, and death very frequently when referring to judgment. There’s no denying that.

If you read Edward Fudge’s The Fire That Consumes—a thick book that goes through many, many passages about the judgment of God—you’ll see how often those passages seem to refer to complete obliteration. For example:

“He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power” (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9).

“He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly” (2 Peter 2:6).

Sodom and Gomorrah, Jude says, “serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7).

This view says the eternal fire does not torment forever and ever but burns up completely—without remedy—and that judgment lasts forever. The fire is eternal, but those judged are not. As the Bible sometimes puts it, “the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever” (Revelation 14:11).

When, after the destruction of Sodom, Abraham looked out over that valley that had once been like the garden of God, all he saw was smoke—nothing but smoke (Genesis 19:28). The annihilationists or conditionalists will say that’s the final judgment: nothing left but ashes and smoke.

Before that happens, though, most of them would say the unsaved are first raised to life again. Some hold that “when they’re dead, they’re dead,” but the more biblical and evangelical annihilationists say the Bible teaches that everybody will be raised again (John 5:28-29). They will be raised and will receive the punishment they deserve. Some will receive greater punishment, some less, for the things they did in this life.

Perhaps a child molester will feel for the appropriate amount of time the pain and damage he inflicted on his victims and those affected by his crimes. Perhaps that lie you thought was small—but which devastated others—you will feel in its full measure. You could list many other sins: sexual immorality, indifference to the needy, rejection of others—the anguish that comes from knowing the damage you’ve caused.

Jesus says part of the anguish will depend on how much opportunity and privilege you had. He said of those towns that saw his miracles and heard his preaching, “It will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you… It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you” (Matthew 11:22-24).

He said in another passage, “That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows” (Luke 12:47-48). Sometimes people simply don’t know better—it’s still wrong, and they still deserve punishment, but not as harshly as those who knew exactly what they were supposed to do and didn’t do it.

Again, the principle is that each receives what he deserves according to what he has done. “He will repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes” (Isaiah 59:18). “It is mine to avenge; I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). “God will give to each person according to what he has done. For those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger” (Romans 2:6-8).

All three views hold to the idea of deserved anguish because it’s so clearly taught in the Bible. A universalist will say that you will get your due in the process of being purified—you will receive what you deserve. The annihilationist will say that before you are wiped out and turned to ashes, you will receive the degree of conscious punishment that you deserve, and only after that will you cease to exist.

So you have universalism, conditionalism, and then traditionalism—the view that has been held the longest by the most Christians and by the most prominent Christian leaders: that the unsaved suffer unending conscious torment.

Verses like these lead to that view: “The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:41-42). In that passage, the furnace does not simply obliterate them. There is weeping and gnashing of teeth in that furnace.

In one of Jesus’ parables, he speaks of the rich man who neglected people during this life, and now he is in torment in fire, begging for a drop of water to cool his tongue (Luke 16:19-31). So you have fire and weeping in these pictures.

Now, to be fair to other views, these are parables that Jesus is mostly telling, and sometimes parables are taken less literally than other parts of the Bible. But don’t be in too much of a hurry to avoid their thrust. “This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and will separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:49-50). The parables and statements of Jesus are some of the most forceful about the torment that comes upon the wicked in the fiery furnace.

Revelation also speaks in several passages about unending torment. “He will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast” (Revelation 14:10-11).

“The devil, who had deceived them, was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever” (Revelation 20:10). “If anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:15).

Terrible words—“tormented day and night forever and ever.” That is the fate of the devil, and the fate of those who follow the devil’s ways.

Now, the danger in this discussion is that I’ve said there are a few different views, and so you might walk away trying to figure out which one is correct. It’s good to be clear doctrinally, but don’t stop at speculation or intellectual sorting. At the end of this, do you fear the eternal fire? Do you take it seriously?

As I’ve said before, false doctrine and wicked living lead to eternal fire. If you want to embrace naturalism, or pluralism, or theological liberalism—simply denying the judgment and the terror of God—you need to realize that is a path that leads to destruction.

We must preach as Jesus preached and as the Scriptures teach: don’t count on second chances. If it ever turned out that there were some, I wouldn’t complain. If God saves people beyond death that I didn’t expect him to save, fine. But God doesn’t speak that way in the Bible. And I think he knows what we’re like anyway—even if he had such a plan, he probably wouldn’t tell us, because we’re the kind of people who always think there’s going to be an easy way out.

The Bible indicates in many places that hell is terrible and irreversible. Jude teaches that: “They suffer the punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 1:7).

Jude tells us to fight for the faith because if you abandon the faith, you’re abandoning the only thing that can save you from the eternal fire. You need to contend for the faith in your own life and in the lives of others, warning them because their destiny, apart from Christ, is this eternal fire.

We’ll say more about it in another message, but Jude says, “Snatch others from the fire and save them” (Jude 1:23). It’s not merely, “Get your doctrine straight” or “Make sure you don’t believe like those foolish people over there.” He’s saying, you have to avoid the eternal fire—and then realize there are others headed for that same fire. Snatch them from it and save them, because God has made provision.

Jude says, “I wanted to write to you about this wonderful salvation we share, but I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith.” He wanted to focus on salvation, but he had to go into detail about false teachers and terrible judgment. Yet people need to be snatched from the fire.

“So be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others, show mercy mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 1:22-23). Have this fear of sin. Realize the terror of judgment and the reality of eternal fire. Reveal to people the only way they can be saved—Jesus and his precious blood. Call them to repentance from wickedness and to new birth through the life of the Spirit of God within them.

Anyone who denies the need to be born again, who denies the blood of Jesus, is a false teacher to be avoided like the plague. Instead, snatch people from the fire and save them. And remember, in all of his great mercy, our God is still a consuming fire. “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:28-29).

So worship him with reverence and awe, and wait for that day. And don’t be intimidated or discouraged. Don’t say, “Things aren’t going well—the church is struggling. The church is going downhill. How will churches meet their budgets when they aren’t as big as they used to be? How are we going to take back our country and make it what we want it to be?”

We all have these little agendas, but get the big agenda. Realize that the great challenge isn’t whether we’ll win more votes or have a little more influence in this particular phase of history. At the end of history comes the great fire—not just the fire of hell, but the consuming fire of the presence of the living God himself.

That great pillar of fire that came to Israel will come again with power, with his holy angels, and with fire—to purify the world and to judge it. That’s what we need to focus on. That’s what others need to be made aware of. That perspective makes so many of the things we worry about seem small by comparison. It’s not that they don’t matter at all, but in light of eternity, they are minor. Realize and fear the eternal fire.

Prayer

O Lord, may we know more and more who you truly are—the fire of your fierce holiness, your opposition to all sin, and at the same time, the cleansing fire of your holy love that purifies us and makes us your people. We pray, Father, that we may come to you through the blood of Jesus, through faith in him, through the wonder of the cross.

We thank you, Lord Jesus, that you took the wrath of God upon yourself and endured the punishment we deserved so that we could be rescued. Enable us to receive that rescue and that salvation with great joy. And then, Lord, help us to hold the faith, to fight for the faith, and to lead others to the faith—that they too may be rescued from the eternal fire and may live with you and glorify you forever. We pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Fear Eternal Fire (Jude)
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

Jude

• Fight for the Faith
• Fear Eternal Fire
• Keep Being Kept

³ Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. ⁴ For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.

Sin without fear

• Church leaders who defend immorality also distort doctrine.
• Preachers of grace without judgment don’t know the real God.
• Thus they deny Jesus by rejecting His authority, holiness, and return as Judge of the living and the dead.

⁵ The Lord delivered his people out of Egypt but later destroyed those who did not believe. (1:5) ⁶ And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. ⁷ In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire.

Privileged perish

• Israelites saw amazing miracles but were destroyed for unbelief.
• Angels enjoyed God’s presence but were punished for rebelling.
• Sodom was “like the garden of the Lord” but perished for vile immorality.

¹⁰ … what things they do understand by instinct, like unreasoning animals—these are the very things that destroy them.

Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain. (1:11)

You will be a restless wanderer on the earth. (Genesis 4:12)

They have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error. (1:11)

The Israelites killed Balaam with the sword. (Numbers 31:8)

They have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion. (1:11)

They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted—twice dead. ¹³ They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever.

¹⁴ Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about these men: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones ¹⁵ to judge everyone, and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

Fear God’s judgment

• Condemned
• Destroyed
• Bound
• Eternal fire
• No rest
• Swallowed up
• Twice dead
• Shame
• Utter darkness forever

Denying final punishment

• Naturalism: all die; no reward or punishment after death
• Pluralism: all paths lead to joy
• Liberalism: God won’t punish

Eternal fire

… bound with everlasting chains... Sodom and Gomorrah serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)

Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (Matt 25:41)

Views of eternal fire

• Universalism: fire purifies
• Conditionalism: fire destroys
• Traditionalism: fire torments

• Universalism: The unsaved suffer and are purified, then are saved.
• Conditionalism: The unsaved are judged, punished, then burnt up.
• Traditionalism: The unsaved suffer unending conscious torment.

Universalism

When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself. (John 12:32)

… the mystery of his will… which he purposed in Christ… to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. (Eph 1:10)

… to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (Col 1:20)

God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. (Romans 11:32)

Views of eternal fire

• Universalism: The unsaved suffer and are purified, then are saved.
• Conditionalism: The unsaved are judged, punished, then burnt up.
• Traditionalism: The unsaved suffer unending conscious torment.

Everlasting destruction

He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power. (2 Thess 1:8-9)

 
Burned to ashes

He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah by burning them to ashes, and made them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly. (2 Peter 2:6)

Sodom and Gomorrah serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. (Jude 1:7)

Due anguish

It will be more bearable on the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon than for you… It will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you. (Matt 11:22, 24)

That servant who knows his master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what his master wants will be beaten with many blows. But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. (Luke 12:47-48)

According to what they have done, so will he repay wrath to his enemies and retribution to his foes (Isaiah 59:18).

“It is mine to avenge; I will repay,” says the Lord. (Romans 12:19)

God will give to each person according to what he has done… for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. (Romans 2:6, 8)

Views of eternal fire

• Universalism: The unsaved suffer and are purified, then are saved.
• Conditionalism: The unsaved are judged, punished, then burnt up.
• Traditionalism: The unsaved suffer unending conscious torment.

Fire and weeping

The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matt 13:41-42)

This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Matthew 13:49-50)

Unending torment

He will drink of the wine of God's fury… the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast. (Rev 14:10-11)

… the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever… if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. (Rev 20:10) 

Fear eternal fire

• False doctrine and wicked living lead to eternal fire.
• Hellfire is terrible and irreversible.
• Fight for the faith in order to be saved from eternal fire and to save others from eternal fire.