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Sin: The Forgotten Doctrine

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Sin: The Forgotten Doctrine

by Sean McDowell

Studies continually show that most Americans—including many Christians—have poor theology. There is a lot of confusion about the person of Christ, the nature of salvation, and the attributes of God.

And yet there is one particular doctrine that has pressing implications for so much of Christian theology, which in my experience, seems to have been forgotten in the church and the wider culture—the sinfulness of man. Do we really grasp how deeply human nature has been corrupted by sin? Failing to grasp the nuances and depth of human sinfulness has massive implications for one’s theology and for all of life.

The consistent biblical teaching is that mankind is made in God’s image with inestimable worth, but has been deeply flawed by sin (Mark 7:21-23; John 2:24-25; Romans 3:9-20). How can I claim human sinfulness has been lost? Let me share two stories.

The Problem of Hell

Recently I was speaking at a youth group in southern California, not far from where I live. After the service, a college student, who described himself as a former Christian, wanted to discuss the “Problem of Hell.” We talked for nearly 45 minutes and he raised the standard objections against the justice of Hell: How could a loving God send someone to Hell? How can a finite sin warrant an eternal punishment? How can people enjoy Heaven knowing their loved ones are in Hell? I did my best to respond with both kindness and truth.

After our talk, it seemed that I had made almost no “dent” with his questions. He still thought God was a moral monster. And then it dawned on me: His problem was that he saw human being as basically good. If humans are basically good, and simply commit a few “sins” in their lifetime, as he believed, then Hell does seem like overkill. Moreover, Hell can only begin to make sense when we grasp the biblical view of mankind—that we are made in God’s image with infinite dignity, value, and worth, but our natures have been deeply corrupted because of sin. An unbiblical view of the nature of man was at the heart of his rejection of the faith…

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Sin: The Forgotten Doctrine - Sean McDowell

Why should we be punished for sin when sinning is our nature?

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Why should we be punished for sin when sinning is our nature?

By Gary Meredith

The Bible says we are born with a sin nature. So why do we deserve Hell for living out of that nature? It's like a fish being condemned to Hell because it's in his nature to swim. It's not fair.

Or is it?

We have a sin nature, but it is not a part of our human nature to be indulged; it is a disease to be cured, a cancer to be cut out.

Before we go a little deeper into that answer, a caution: Be very suspicious of that word "fair." "Fairness" has recently been elevated to an almost sacred doctrine, often for the purpose of bashing other people — and God — over the head; to accuse them of not measuring up to some modern, temporary, popular standard of right and wrong. The problem is, what people judge to be fair or unfair differs among different people, places and times. In the United States, the divine right of kings to rule over us was "fair" until 1776; race-based slavery was "fair" until 1865; preventing women from voting was "fair" until 1920. You've probably heard the old saying, "All's fair in love and war." I'll bet the losers don't agree with that standard! One cable news network claims to be "fair and balanced," while others disagree. The point is, fairness is a shifting human guideline, not a permanent godly standard. Now, back to the answer.

Our sin nature is not "natural" to us; it is something we have, not something we are. A fish can only be a fish; that's all they were ever created to be. A human being can be reborn and regenerated, transformed into the image of Christ, glorious beyond imagination; that's what each of us was created to be…

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Why should we be punished for sin when sinning is our nature?

Is it God's Fault People Go to Hell?

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Is it God's Fault People Go to Hell?

by Jason Wisdom

Matt Dillahunty, one of the hosts of the popular television program and podcast, "The Atheist Experience," offers the following logical chain:

“Assuming god exists and assuming a person has a soul, if god created everything, including hell, god also created the rules by which the universe operates, including the criteria by which souls are judged.  Since everything happens according to god’s will, god is ultimately responsible for everything, and that must, by logic, include whether or not people go to hell.  Therefore the decision to send anyone to hell is made by god.”

I have heard/seen this objection made in many different ways, but the criticism is essentially the same. God is the one to blame. If anything, some critics will say, God is the one who deserves to be punished. By the way, I have seen/listened to the episode where I believe this little excerpt originated. A woman professing to be a Christian (to be polite, I will simply say she doesn't come across as very knowlegeable) called in and Dillahunty presented her with this logical chain. He walked her through each point, phrased as a question. Did 1. God create everything? She said yes. 2. Did he create the rules including the criteria by which souls are judged? Yes. 3. Does anything that happens go against God's will? She said no. From there, Dillahunty concluded (and I think rightly so, based on the caller's answers), that God is ultimately responsible for everything that happens and therefore, the fault is with God, not the person who is sent to Hell. At that point, the woman said "That's missed up." Dillahunty agreed with her and laughingly said, "Yeah, logic is a real pain."

In response to Dillahunty's logical chain, Rob Coulter, a self-styled "independent atheist" said, "For me, this means that god is judgmental and vindictive, not kind and merciful" (http://www.weareatheism.com/rob-coulter/).

Now, here is something you might not have expected me to say--I agree with them. That is, based on the criteria that Dillahunty has provided, I think Coulter's response is a fair one. If God is the one who set up the game, and the one who determined the rules of the game, and everything happens according to his will, then he is responsible for everything, and that makes him responsible for some pretty awful stuff, not the least of which is that he creates people and sends them to Hell for doing things that he made them do. While I think his conclusion makes sense given his premises, I disagree with the premises (I also dislike the way it is framed, as a "game'', but I will leave that alone for now). And just for the record, if one can show that even just one of the premises is faulty, then the conclusion becomes irrelevant. I will argue that two of them are problematic…

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Is it God's Fault People Go to Hell? - because it's true

Hell, The Moral Argument

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Hell, The Moral Argument

By Dr Andrew Corbett

Heaven and Hell are commonly presented as either the benefit or the consequence of how a person responds to God. It's as if people think that the whole point of religion is to get people into Heaven and to keep them out of Hell. From this "religious" perspective, Heaven is Ultimate Bliss, Paradise, Perfect Beauty - while Hell is Fire, Eternal Punishment, Anguish, Torment, and The Devil's Domain.

In recent times there has come a lot of push-back regarding the very notion of Hell as it perceived by many. Among Christians who have rejected the classical view of Hell are several well-respected writers including John R.W. Stott, and George MacDonald. Responding to the resurgence of this idea, Dr Tony Campolo, in his last Evangelical work, "Speaking My Mind", argued that he was very emotionally drawn to accept the non-existence of Hell if it wasn't for the Scriptures!

Leonard Ravenhill in his book Why Revival Tarries recounts the last moments of Charlie Peace's life:
He was taken on the death-walk. Before him went the prison chaplain, routinely and sleepily reading some Bible verses. The criminal touched the preacher and asked what he was reading. “The Consolations of Religion,” was the reply.
Charlie Peace was shocked at the way he professionally read about hell. Could a man be so unmoved under the very shadow of the scaffold as to lead a fellow-human there and yet, dry-eyed, read of a pit that has no bottom into which this fellow must fall? Could this preacher believe the words that there is an eternal fire that never consumes its victims, and yet slide over the phrase without a tremor? Is a man human at all who can say with no tears, “You will be eternally dying and yet never know the relief that death brings”?
All this was too much for Charlie Peace. So he preached. Listen to his on-the-eve-of-hell sermon.
“Sir” addressing the preacher, “if I believed what you and the church of God say that you believe, even if England were covered with broken glass from coast to coast, I would walk over it, if need be, on hands and knees and think it worth while living, just to save one soul from an eternal hell like that!” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peace

"We must not ask where Hell is, but how we are to escape it." Chrysostom (In Rom., Hom. xxxi, n. 5 in P.G., LX, 674)

In a recent YouTube exchange of viewer comments about one of my videos (not about this topic) the viewer was rather hostile to the notion of a God who would send anyone to Hell. But his comments went far beyond what is normally discussed around this issue. Most of the discussion about Hell has been about whether it exists and therefore whether Scripture actually teaches it. Those who propose that Hell does not exist fall into two general categories: (i) Annihilationists - those who do not go to Heaven simply cease to exist; and (ii) Universalists - everyone goes to Heaven. But this viewer was neither of these. He had read parts of the Bible and seen that it discusses Hell, eternal Judgment, and everlasting damnation for some. His objection then was not over Hell's existence but over the morality of a God who would send anyone there. He argued that this made God worse than Stalin, Hitler and Pot combined. After all, he stated, how could a God who sent someone to Hell to burn, be tormented, and be punished for eternity for a sin that took no time at all, be considered a loving, kind, worship-worthy God? Like a lot of 'debates' which are highly emotive, this YouTube exchange didn't produce an acceptable outcome for my viewer, but now that the digital dust has settled a little, it might be about time to present a balanced case for the Biblical teaching on Hell which is hopefully less emotive…

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Hell, The Moral Argument | Finding Truth Matters

Heaven and Hell: How to Explain God's Love AND Justice to Kids

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Heaven and Hell: How to Explain God’s Love AND Justice to Kids

By Natasha Crain

Lately, my two daughters (ages 6 and 4) have been arguing incessantly every morning. It’s the first thing I hear every day, echoing from down the hall:

“Stop staring at me!”

“Then leave my room!”

“You’re so mean!”

“No, you’re the meanest in the world!”

The other morning, my older daughter ran into my room, crying, “Mommy! Sister pushed me to the ground! I got hurt!”

In utter fatigue and frustration, I just looked at her blankly and replied, “I just don’t care anymore. I don’t know what to tell you.”

She burst into tears. “It’s NOT FAIR! Why don’t you care she did something bad?”

I shrugged and said, “I should. I’m just too tired of all this fighting to do anything anymore.”

I ushered my wailing daughter out of the room and finished getting ready, feeling like a total failure.

Little did I know my failure would serve as a great lesson about God’s love and justice only a few hours later.

Explaining God’s Love and Justice to Kids

That evening, when I was tucking my daughter into bed, she said, “I don’t totally understand who goes to heaven and hell.”

We had talked about this topic on many occasions before, but of course it’s something hard for kids to understand. At that moment, God placed it on my heart to use the example from the morning to explain the concepts in a more tangible way. I saw the lights really go on in her eyes through our conversation, so I want to share it with you today in dialogue form. I hope it will help you have this discussion with your own kids…

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Heaven and Hell: How to Explain God's Love AND Justice to Kids

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Answering Common Objections to Hell

Answering Common Objections to Hell

by Chad Gross

I finished Frank Turek's new book Stealing from God and plan on reviewing it next week.  I have been busy this week preparing for a sermon I'm preaching this coming Sunday.  I highly recommend Turek's book.  It is the best apologetics book I've read since J. Warner Wallace's Cold Case Christianity!

In the closing chapter of his book, Turek offers some concise answers to common objections about the doctrine of hell that I found helpful:

God tortures people in hell.- No, the Bible never describes hell as "torture."  Hell is described as a place of "torment," which is the anguish one experiences being separated from God.  And those in hell have made their choice and do not ask to get out.

Will God send me to hell just because I don't believe in Jesus?- This is best answered with a question: Do people die just because they don't go to the doctor?  No, they die because they have a disease.  Likewise, you don't go to hell merely because you don't trust in Jesus; you go to hell because you've sinned.  Since God is perfectly just, He cannot allow sin to go unpunished.  Jesus paid for everyone's sins, but not everyone wants to be forgiven.  Hence, hell is necessary.  But it's not necessary for you.  Just like you may be able to prevent physical death by going to a human physician, you can certainly prevent eternal death by going to the Great Physician- Jesus.  This offer of forgiveness is open to everyone, which means God "sends" you where you've chosen to go…

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Truthbomb Apologetics: Answering Common Objections to Hell