by John Piper
My aim here is to provide the biblical data that, in my judgment, compel a positive answer to each of these three questions. I hope to demonstrate that in the fullest sense Jesus Christ is humanity’s only hope for salvation. To do this I will gather into three groups the texts that relate most directly to the three questions we have posed. Some comment will be made along the way.
A Hell of Eternal Conscious Torment
And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Daniel 12:2
It is true that the Hebrew ‘olam does not always mean “everlasting,” but in this context it seems to because it points to a decisive division into joy or misery after death and resurrection. As the life is everlasting, so the shame and contempt are everlasting.
“His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire” (Matt. 3:12; cf. Luke 3:17). This is John the Baptist’s prediction of the judgment that Jesus will bring in the end. He pictures a decisive separation. The term “unquenchable fire” implies a fire that will not be extinguished and therefore a punishment that will not end. This is confirmed in Mark 9:43–48:
And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame than with two feet to be thrown into hell. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into hell, “where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
Here the “unquenchable fire” is clearly hell, and the last line shows that the point is the unending misery of those who go there (“their worm does not die”). If annihilation (the teaching that some cease to exist after death or after a limited period of conscious punishment in hell)9 were in view, why would the verse stress the fire never being quenched and the worm never dying? John Stott struggles to escape this by saying that the worm will not die and the fire will not be quenched “until presumably their work of destruction is done.”10 That qualification is not in the text. On the contrary, the focus on eternal duration is confirmed in Matthew 18:8: “And if your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into the eternal fire.”
Here the fire is not only unquenchable but more explicitly “eternal.” The fact that this fire is not merely a purifying fire of the age to come (as some take aionion to mean) is shown in the subsequent sayings of Jesus, especially the one on the unforgivable sin (Matt. 12:31–32; Luke 12:10). “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10:28; cf. Luke 12:4–5). The “destruction” referred to here is decisive and final, but it does not have to mean obliterate or annihilate. The word apollymi frequently means “ruin” or “lose” or “perish” or “get rid of” (Matt. 8:25; 9:17; 10:6; 12:14). It does not imply annihilate. It is eternal ruin (see 2 Thess. 1:9).
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’ . . . And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:41, 46). The eternal fire is explicitly “punishment,” and its opposite is eternal life. It does not honor the full import of “eternal life” to say that it refers only to a quality of life without eternal connotations.11 Therefore, it would fall short of truth to say that “eternal punishment” has no reference to eternal duration. As Leon Morris says, “It is not easy to see the fate of the wicked as anything less permanent than that of the believer.”12
Not only that, but when we compare this text to Revelation 20:10, the case for conscious eternal torment is strengthened. Here in Matthew 25:41, the goats are sentenced to “eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” This is precisely what is described in Revelation 20:10, namely, the final destiny of the devil. The condition is clearly one of conscious torment (see below in this text).
“The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born” (Matt. 26:24). If Judas were destined for glory eventually (as in universalism) or even destined for extinction (as in annihilationism), it is difficult to imagine why it would have been better for him not to have been born.13 In John 17:12, he is called the “son of destruction”—a term related to the word for “destroy” in Matthew 10:28.
“Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin” (Mark 3:29). “And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come” (Matt. 12:32). This rules out the idea that after a time of suffering in hell, sinners will then be forgiven and admitted to heaven. Matthew says that there will be no forgiveness in the age to come for the unforgivable sin, and so Mark calls it an eternal sin, which shows that the word “eternal” is indeed a temporal word of endless duration and not just a word referring to a limited period in the age to come.
“And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us” (Luke 16:26). These are the words of Abraham in heaven speaking to the rich man in Hades. The point is that the suffering there cannot be escaped. There is no way out.
[God] will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury.
Romans 2:6–8
This text is significant because wrath and fury are the alternative to “eternal life.” This seems to imply that the wrath and fury are experienced instead of life “eternally”—forever.
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes on that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed.
2 Thessalonians 1:9–10
The word for “destruction” (olethros) means “ruin” (1 Cor. 5:5; 1 Tim. 6:9). The picture is not of obliteration but of a ruin of human life out of God’s presence forever.
Let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.
Hebrews 6:1–2
These are blemishes on your love feasts . . . wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
Jude 12–13
And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.
Revelation 14:11
There is no stronger Greek expression for eternity than this one: “unto ages of ages” (eis ai nas ai non). “Once more they cried out, ‘Hallelujah!
The smoke from her goes up forever and ever’” (Rev. 19:3). “And 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” (Rev. 20:10). Again the strongest of expressions are used for everlasting duration: “unto the ages of the ages” (eist us ai nas ton aionon). John Stott again struggles to escape the clear intent of the eternal torments of the lake of fire. He says that Revelation 20:10 r
efers to the beast and false prophet who “are not individual people but symbols of the world in its varied hostility to God. In the nature of the case they cannot experience pain.”14
But Stott fails to mention Revelation 20:15, where it says that “if anyone’s name [not just that of the beast and the false prophet] was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Similarly, Revelation 21:8 says that it is individual sinners whose “portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” And the torment that lasts “forever and ever” in Revelation 14:11 is precisely the torment of people “with fire and sulfur”—that is, the torment of “the lake that burns with fire and sulfur” (21:8). In other words, the “lake of fire” is in view not only, as Stott suggests, when the beast, the false prophet, death, and Hades (20:13) are cast out but also when individual unbelievers are finally condemned (14:10–11; 20:15; 21:8), and that shows decisively that individual unbelieving persons will experience eternal conscious torment.15
Hell is a dreadful reality. To speak of it lightly proves that we do not grasp its horror. I know of no one who has overstated the terrors of hell. We can scarcely surpass the horrid images Jesus used. We are meant to shudder.
Why? Because the infinite horrors of hell are intended by God to be a vivid demonstration of the infinite value of his glory, which sinners have belittled. The biblical assumption of the justice of hell16 is the clearest testimony to the infiniteness of the sin of failing to glorify God. All of us have failed. All the nations have failed. Therefore, the weight of infinite guilt rests on every human head because of our failure to delight in God more than we delight in our own self-sufficiency.
The vision of God in Scripture is of a majestic and sovereign God who does all things to magnify the greatness of his glory for the everlasting enjoyment of his people. And the view of man in Scripture is that man suppresses this truth and finds more joy in his own glory than he does in God’s.
When Clark Pinnock17 and John Stott18 repeat the centuries-old objection that an eternal punishment is disproportionate to a finite life of sinning, they disregard the essential thing that Jonathan Edwards saw so clearly: Degrees of blameworthiness come not from how long you offend dignity but from how high the dignity is that you offend.
The crime of one being despising and casting contempt on another, is proportionably more or less heinous, as he was under greater or less obligations to obey him. And therefore if there be any being that we are under infinite obligation to love, and honor, and obey, the contrary towards him must be infinitely faulty.
Our obligation to love, honor and obey any being is in proportion to his loveliness, honorableness, and authority. . . . But God is a being infinitely lovely, because he hath infinite excellency and beauty. . . .
So sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving infinite punishment. . . . The eternity of the punishment of ungodly men renders it infinite . . . and therefore renders no more than proportionable to the heinousness of what they are guilty of.19
One key difference between Edwards and our contemporary spokesmen who abandon the historic biblical view of hell is that Edwards was radically committed to deriving his views of God’s justice and love from God. But more and more it seems that contemporary evangelicals are submitting to what “makes sense” to their own moral sentiments.20 This will not strengthen the church or its mission. What is needed is a radical commitment to the supremacy of God in determining what is real and what is not.
The Necessity of Christ’s Atonement for Salvation
The second question we must ask as part of our inquiry is whether Christ’s work of atonement is necessary for the salvation of whoever is saved. Can people be saved any way other than by the efficacy of Christ’s work? Are other religions and the provisions they offer sufficient for bringing people to eternal happiness with God?
The following biblical texts lead us to believe that Christ’s atonement is necessary for the salvation of everyone who is saved. There is no salvation apart from the salvation that Christ achieved in his death and resurrection.
If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.
Romans 5:17–19
The crucial point here is the universality of the work of Christ. It is not done in a corner with reference merely to Jews. The work of Christ, the second Adam, corresponds to the work of the first Adam. As the sin of Adam leads to condemnation for all humanity that are united to him as their head, so the obedience of Christ leads to righteousness for all humanity that are united to Christ as their head—“those who receive the abundance of grace” (v. 17). The work of Christ in the obedience of the cross is pictured as the divine answer to the plight of the entire human race.
For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
1 Corinthians 15:21–23
In this text, Christ’s resurrection is the answer to the universal human misery of death. Adam is the head of the old humanity marked by death. Christ is the head of the new humanity marked by resurrection. The members of this new humanity are “those who belong to Christ” (v. 23).21 Christ is not a tribal deity relating merely to the woes of one group. He is given as God’s answer to the universal problem of death. Those who attain to the resurrection of the dead attain it in Christ.
“There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:5–6). The work of Christ corresponds to his role as sole Mediator in the universe between God and man.
Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.
Revelation 5:9–10
The entire Book of Revelation pictures Christ as the King of kings and Lord of lords (17:14; 19:16)—the universal ruler over all peoples and powers. Revelation 5:9 shows that he purchased a people for himself from all the tribes and languages of the world. His atonement is the means in every culture by which men and women become part of his kingdom. (See John 11:51–52.)
“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The work of Christ is not mentioned here explicitly, but the universality of his name as the only way to salvation would imply that whatever he did to win salvation for his people (namely, shed his blood [Acts 20:28]) has universal significance.
There are no other ways that a person in another religion can be saved. If anyone would be saved, he must be saved by the name of Christ. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith” (Rom. 3:23–25).
Romans 3:9–20 establishes that all humans—Jew and Gentile—are under the power of sin and are speechless before the judgment of God. Therefore, the death of Christ is set forth as an answer to this universal problem of sin. It is not one among many ways God deals with sin. It is the basis of the way God justifies any sinner.
In answer to the second question, then, the New Testament makes clear that the atoning work of Christ is not merely for Jews or merely for any one nation or tribe or language. It is the one an
d only way for anyone to get right with God. The problem of sin is universal, cutting people off from God. The solution to that problem is the atoning death of the Son of God offered once for all. This is the very foundation of missions. Since the work of Christ is the only basis for salvation,22 it must be announced to all the nations, as Luke 24:46–47 says:
Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.
The Necessity for People to Hear of Christ in Order to Be Saved
The question that concerns us here is whether some (perhaps only a few) people are quickened by the Holy Spirit and saved by grace through faith in a merciful Creator even though they never hear of Jesus in this life. In other words, are there devout people in other religions who humbly rely on the grace of the God whom they know through nature (Rom. 1:19–21) and thus receive eternal salvation?23
Something of immense historical significance happened with the coming of the Son of God into the world. So great was the significance of this event that the focus of saving faith was henceforth made to center on Jesus Christ alone. So fully does Christ sum up all the revelation of God and all the hopes of God’s people that it would henceforth be a dishonor to him should saving faith repose on anyone but him.24
Before his coming a grand “mystery” was kept secret for ages. With the uncovering of this mystery, the “times of ignorance” ended, and the call to repentance now sounds forth with a new specificity: Jesus Christ has been appointed Judge of all peoples by virtue of his resurrection from the dead. All appeals for mercy and acquittal must now come through him and him alone. We turn now to the texts that lay this truth open for us.
The “Mystery of Christ”
When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel.