jgredline
Member
The user-friendly philosophy is a sharp turn down a wrong road for the church. I am convinced that the downgrading of worship, Scripture, and theology will ultimately usher in serious doctrinal compromise. In fact, that may already be happening. Christian leaders who identify themselves as evangelical are beginning to question cardinal doctrines such as hell and human depravity.
One of the most popular movements afoot today embraces a doctrine known as “conditional immortality,†similiar to annihilationism. It is the idea that unredeemed sinners are simply eradicated rather than spending eternity in hell. A perfect fit for the user-friendly philosophy, this view teaches that a merciful God could not possibly consign created beings to eternal torment. Instead, he obliterates them completely.
Conditional immortality and annihilationism are not new ideas. History shows, however, that most people and movements who adopt annihilationist views do not remain orthodox. Denying the eternality of hell is tantamount to a running start on the down-grade.
Spurgeon attacked conditional immortality as one of the great errors of the nineteenth-century down-grade. He said that those who deny the eternality of hell “have pretty nearly obliterated the hope of such a heaven as we have all along expected. Of course, the reward of the righteous is to be of no longer continuance than the punishment of the wicked. Both are described as ‘everlasting’ in the same verse [Matt. 25:46], spoken by the same sacred lips; and as the ‘punishment’ is made out to be only ‘age-lasting,’ so must the ‘life’ be.â€Â
Scripture says, “The devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are also; and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever†(Rev. 20:10). Jesus told of the rich man who “In Hades … lifted up his eyes, being in torment, and saw Abraham far away, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool off my tongue; for I am in agony in this flame’†(Luke 16:23, 24). It was also Jesus who said, “If your eye causes you to stumble, cast it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into hell, where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched†(Mark 9:47, 48). And Revelation 14:11 describes the eternal state of those who follow Antichrist in the Tribulation: “The smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.†The most prolific teacher on hell in all of Scripture was the Lord Jesus Himself. He had more to say about the subject than all the apostles, prophets, and evangelists of Scripture put together.
Embracing this theory also usually has the effect of making people indifferent to evangelism. They begin to feel comfortable that everyone will either be saved or put out of misery, so evangelism loses its urgency. The gospel seems less compelling. It becomes easy to kick back and think less about eternal matters. And that is precisely the effect these theories have had in churches and denominational groups where they have been espoused. As the churches become liberal, the “Christians†influenced by them become cold to spiritual things. Many times they deny the faith altogether. The history of universalism provides abundant evidence of this. Because the doctrine is at its heart a denial of Scripture, it is a sure road to serious apostasy.
Preaching that downplays God’s wrath does not enhance evangelism; it undermines it. The urgency of the gospel is utterly lost when the preacher denies the reality or severity of everlasting punishment. The authority of Scripture is compromised when so much of Christ’s clear message must be denied or explained away. The seriousness of sin is depreciated by this teaching. And therefore the gospel itself is subverted.
How deeply has the tendency to deny hell penetrated evangelicalism? One survey of evangelical seminary students revealed that nearly halfâ€â€46 percentâ€â€felt preaching about hell to unbelievers is in “poor taste.†Worse, three out of every ten self-professed “born again†people surveyed believe “good†people will go to heaven when they dieâ€â€even if they’ve never trusted Christ. One in every ten evangelicals say they believe the concept of sin is outmoded.
Too many who have embraced the user-friendly trend have not carefully pondered how user-friendliness is incompatible with true biblical theology. It is, at its heart, a pragmatic, not a biblical, outlook. It is based on precisely the kind of thinking that is eating away at the heart of orthodox doctrine. It is leading evangelicalism into neo-modernism and putting churches in the fast lane on the down-grade.
The answer, of course, is not an unfriendly church, but a vibrant, loving, honest, committed, worshiping fellowship of believers who minister to one another like the church in Acts chapter 4â€â€but who eschew sin, keep one another accountable, and boldly proclaim the full truth of Scripture. People who have no love for the things of God may not find such a place very user-friendly. But God’s blessing will be on the fellowship of true believers, because that is what He ordained the church to be like. And He will add to the church, as He promised.