Is Hell really eternal? How could an infinitely Holy God send people to Hell, a place of torment He created, for all eternity? Let us say that a wicked man lived on earth for eighty years, would it be just to torture a man who lived a wicked life, for eighty years, in the Lake of Fire for all eternity—an unending duration of time? If God is so loving, can’t God just let that man be consumed by the flames and vanish from existence? After all, God isn’t sadistic is He?
Universalism is the idea that after some torment of people in Hell, or even without a need for suffering in Hell because of all the sins committed against God, God would eventually have mercy on them and grant them fellowship with Him. That God is too loving to allow the sufferings of people without end. Universalism is far more heretical than annihilationism—the idea that sinners would suffer in Hell, but would eventually stop from existence once they have been consumed by the flames, since sinners are not raised with glorified bodies the way Christians are.
Here are some universalists refuted by Christians using the truths of the Bible:
The False Teachings of Dallas Willard.
Greg Boyd’s Bad Theology
It is really hard to think of a loved one spending his/her eternity in Hell. But in the end, we would realize that in reality the people we loved and have been with us while here on earth have been covered by the grace of God; and so, all the good things about them that we loved are actually the grace and goodness of God upon their lives.
After God’s judgement for the unbelievers, no one in Hell would really desire forgiveness of sin and reconciliation to God. Have you not read that people who will be cast outside God’s loving presence will be in a place where “…there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth”? (Mat 8:12)
So great is human depravity, that apart from the grace of God, nothing but evil is left to man.
People don’t gnash their teeth because they are sorry. If you would look at all the appearances of the gnashing in the Bible, you would find no place where people gnash their teeth because of an intense desire to repent and change. No. People gnash their teeth in indignation against the God Who is torturing them for all their evil. Aside from that, people who would go to Hell will never stop sinning. In fact, people in Hell are worst sinners than they are here on earth; because here, they are restrained by God according to His will. In Hell, sinners are unrestrained in their sinful nature. In Hell, what will sinners do is curse the God to whom they have no ability to fight against. The nature of unrepentant sinners in Hell are fixed, and they have no chance of salvation; they don’t have any possibility of desiring to repent and ask for forgiveness either. I remember a dear pastor who said, “If there would be a soul who would repent in Hell, that soul would be saved, but there is none who would ever do that.”
The latest universalist heretic is no other than…
Okay, Rob Bell is clearly not a Christian. What about Billy Graham? You might ask, “Is Billy Graham a universalist too?” For some, Billy Graham is no doubt a Christian, but I don’t know about his new position on the matter. Well, just listen to pastor John MacArthur on the issue of inclusivism and Billy Graham:
Please, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that Christians don’t like to have a lot of people in Heaven. Far from it, it is our desire to see people converted and saved. However, we as Christians, do not say that a person can be saved apart from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ is the only way to Heaven.
Theophilus Maranatha 