Author Archives: John Samson

What Did Jesus Actually Teach About Hell?

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https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermons/12112554295917

The Pain Texts – A Teaching Summary

“Will we bow to His word, even when our emotions protest?”

Foundational Definitions

  • Eternal Conscious Punishment: Ongoing, unending, consciously felt judgment after resurrection for those who reject Christ.
  • Annihilationism: The view that the wicked are extinguished after judgment, ceasing to exist as their final punishment.
  • Conditional Immortality: The belief that only the saved receive eternal existence; others are ultimately destroyed.

Key Passages and Exegetical Observations

Matthew 25:31–46

  • Two groups only: sheep and goats.
  • Two destinies only: eternal punishment vs. eternal life (v. 46).
  • The word “eternal” (Gk: aionios) modifies both punishment and life – same duration, different ends.
  • “Punishment” (Gk: kolasis) implies a conscious experience, not a passive result.

Revelation 14:9–11; 20:10–15

  • Language of “torment,” “day and night,” “forever and ever” 
  • “No rest day or night” is active, continuous judgment.
  • The same lake of fire torments Satan and is the final destination for the lost.

Mark 9:43–48 (cf. Isaiah 66:24)

  • “Unquenchable fire” = fire that cannot be put out.
  • “Their worm does not die” = ongoing corruption, decay, and disgrace that never reaches a point of relief or completion.
  • Not images of extinction, but of perpetual ruin and judgment.

Luke 16:19–31

  • The rich man is conscious, in agony, and aware of his condition – before final judgment.
  • Jesus treats postmortem torment as a real category.

2 Thessalonians 1:5–10

  • “Eternal destruction from the presence of the Lord.”
  • Olethros = ruin, not erasure.
  • One cannot be shut out from God’s presence unless they continue to exist.

Doctrinal Summary

  • Scripture teaches not merely a final moment of judgment, but a continuing experience of God’s wrath.
  • Historic Reformed confessions (e.g. 2LBCF 1689, Westminster, Athanasian Creed) uphold this view without hesitation.
  • Church history stands unified: annihilationism is a theological novelty.

Pastoral Application

1. This Doctrine Should Humble Us – Hell is not a theory. It is real. We speak with tears and prayer, not cold logic.

2. This Doctrine Magnifies the Cross – Jesus bore in hours what would crush us for eternity. Diminishing hell diminishes grace.

3. This Doctrine Urges Evangelism – We are not inviting people to a lifestyle, but warning of eternal danger and offering eternal life.

4. This Doctrine Calls for Self-Examination – Am I in Christ? Have I turned from sin and trusted in Him alone?

The same Jesus who speaks most vividly of hell is the Jesus who says, ‘Come to Me… and I will give you rest.’

Let this doctrine drive us to prayer, compassion, urgency, and more profound gratitude for so great a salvation.

Shared Words, Different Gods: Why Conscience Draws A Line

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I cannot, in good conscience, attend certain religious services as an act of worship. This is not because I dislike the people involved or wish to be unkind. It is because I am persuaded, from Scripture, that Christian worship is never a neutral activity. To gather in a place of worship is to share in what that worship says about God, about Christ, and about the way of salvation. My conscience, as a Christian and a pastor, is bound to the Word of God, not to social expectations or invitations.

Let me use an analogy. Suppose a friend warmly invited me to a ceremony where a dead pig was hoisted on an elevated throne, incense was offered, and prayers were directed to this animal as a god. I might care deeply for my friend and wish them no harm. Yet I could not, in good conscience, attend that ceremony. To be present, to sing, to bow, or even to sit quietly among those acts of devotion would, in God’s sight, be to participate in idolatry. In the eyes of the living God, there is no difference in seriousness between worshiping an animal, a carved image, or a more sophisticated false deity. Crude idolatry and refined idolatry are both idolatry. That is why my conscience cannot join in any act of worship that is directed to someone other than the true God revealed in Scripture, whatever outward form it may take.

The Bible speaks with great clarity on this point. Israel was repeatedly warned not to “go after other gods” or to learn the ways of the nations in their worship (Deut. 12:29–32). Paul tells Christians to “flee from idolatry” and explains that when people share in pagan sacrifices, they become “participants with demons” (1 Cor. 10:14–22). He also insists that “there is no other God” and “no other Savior” besides the one true and living God (Isa. 43:10–11). Where there is a different god and a different gospel, there is a different religion altogether (Gal. 1:6–9; 2 Cor. 11:4). To join in the worship of another god or another Christ is not a light matter. It is a participation in something God Himself forbids.

It is important to make a careful distinction here. Within the broad household of biblical Christianity there are many congregations whose secondary doctrines and practices I might not share, yet whose worship I could still join, in good conscience. There are brothers and sisters who differ with me on questions such as baptism, church government, spiritual gifts, or the precise details of eschatology, and yet they confess the same triune God, the same Lord Jesus Christ, truly God and truly man, and the same gospel of salvation by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. With such believers I can gladly stand, sing, and pray. We may not agree on every point, but we are worshiping the same God and the same Christ. This is why, in the public worship of our own congregation, the call to worship explicitly addresses the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as the One to whom our praise is directed.

The line is crossed, however, when the “god” being named is not the God of Scripture, when the “Jesus” being preached is not the eternal Son who became man, or when the way of salvation that is proclaimed or enacted is no longer the gospel of grace, but something that denies or obscures it. At that point the issue is no longer Christian diversity on secondary matters. It is a different god, a different Christ, and a different gospel. That is where conscience must draw a firm line and say, “I cannot join this as worship,” even if I love the people involved and desire their good.

This is why it is not honest to say that all religions are just different paths up the same mountain. If you compare the major world religions side by side, you find radically different claims about the most basic questions. Some deny that there is any personal God at all and speak instead of an impersonal force or ultimate reality that has no face and no voice. Others affirm millions of gods and goddesses. Some, like Islam and Judaism, insist that God is one person only and explicitly reject the Christian confession that the one God eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Still others, such as various forms of modern spirituality and neo paganism, speak of a god and goddess, or invite devotion to a whole range of deities and spiritual powers. These are fundamentally different answers to the question “Who is God?”

The same is true when you ask what these religions say about Jesus and salvation. Some view Jesus merely as a wise teacher whose followers later invented stories about miracles and resurrection. Others say He was a prophet, but not the Son of God and not crucified for sinners. Some say salvation is found by escaping the cycle of rebirth through personal effort and spiritual discipline. Others place the weight on rituals, sacraments, pilgrimages, or keeping certain pillars and laws. The biblical gospel, by contrast, proclaims that Jesus is the eternal Son of God made flesh, that He truly died and rose again, and that salvation is by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, apart from human merit. To speak as if all these views were simply different versions of the same faith is to empty words like “God,” “Christ,” and “salvation” of any real meaning.

This same concern comes into sharp focus when we move from world religions in general to specific settings closer to home. It is why I could not, for example, attend the Roman Catholic Mass as an act of worship. According to official Roman Catholic teaching, at the moment of consecration the bread and wine are changed in their substance into the very body and blood of Christ, so that Christ is present “in a true, real, and substantial manner.” The Mass is also defined as a sacrifice in which Christ is offered to God in an unbloody manner on behalf of the living and the dead, for their sins. I am convinced that this teaching stands in direct contradiction to the New Testament’s clear witness that Christ offered Himself once for all, that His sacrifice is finished, and that He “sat down at the right hand of God” because His priestly work is complete (Heb. 9:25–28; 10:10–14). To sit, as a Christian pastor, in the midst of a rite that presents itself as a repeated propitiatory sacrifice would, in my understanding, be to say by my presence that such teaching is acceptable, when Scripture convinces me it is not.

The same principle applies, with different details, to worship in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Classical Mormon teaching, reflected in the King Follett discourse and in official explanations by LDS leaders, holds that God Himself was once a man who became God, and that faithful humans may in turn become gods as He is. In this system there are many gods, and the god of our world has a tangible human body. Jesus is taught to be the firstborn spirit child of “Heavenly Father” and a heavenly mother, the elder brother of Lucifer and of all mankind. That is not a minor adjustment to historic Christianity. It is a different view of God and a different view of Christ from that confessed in the ancient creeds and Reformed confessions, and far more importantly, from what I am persuaded Scripture teaches: that the Son is the eternal Word who “was God” in the beginning and through whom “all things were made” (John 1:1–3), not a being who came into existence as one god among many.

The same is true for the meetings of Jehovah’s Witnesses. According to the official teaching of the Watchtower Society, there is no triune God. Jehovah alone is God, and Jesus is a created being, the first and greatest creature of God, identified with Michael the archangel. In that system, Christ is not confessed as the eternal Son who shares the one divine nature with the Father and the Spirit, but as a lesser, created being through whom God does His work. The Holy Spirit is not worshiped as a divine person, but spoken of as an impersonal active force. Whatever sincerity may be present among individual Witnesses, this is a different God and a different Christ from the One revealed in Scripture and confessed by the historic Christian church. I could not, in good conscience, sit in a Kingdom Hall and join in songs, prayers, and teaching that deny the deity of Christ and the personhood of the Spirit. To do so would be to treat as Christian worship what Scripture identifies as something else.

If a Muslim, a Mormon, and a biblical Christian stand in a room and each says, “I believe in Jesus,” we have to ask what each one means by that name. The Muslim Jesus is not the Son of God and did not die on the cross. The Mormon Jesus is a created spirit child of Heavenly Father and a heavenly mother, the elder brother of Lucifer. The Jesus of Scripture is the eternal Word, the second Person of the Trinity, who was with God in the beginning and is Himself God, the Creator of all things. We are not talking about three slightly different portraits of the same person. We are talking about three fundamentally different Christs.

None of this means I do not respect or care for Roman Catholic, Latter-day Saint, and Jehovah’s Witness friends and neighbors, or for those from other religious traditions. On the contrary, I am grateful for every kindness shown, and I recognize that many within these communities are serious and sincere, and, by God’s common grace, often do much real good for their families, their neighbors, and the wider community. That does not make any of us less in need of the saving grace of Christ. My aim is not to attack anyone, but to remain loyal to the truth about God and His gospel. Because worship is an act of participation, not a matter of merely sitting in a room, I cannot attend certain services and behave as if we were honoring the same God, the same Christ, and the same way of salvation, when Scripture, together with the official teaching of that church or religion, shows that we are not. In my understanding, doing so would be to engage in false worship. A conscience held captive to the Word of God must refuse that.

How can we know God exists?

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I am excited to launch a new series that tackles some of the most common and pressing questions people have about the Christian faith today. We will look at them honestly and carefully. We will not dodge the difficult ones.

If someone claims to own a rare and priceless jewel, the best way to prove it is simple: invite people to examine it closely, hold it to the light, test it, and ask tough questions. A real jewel can take the scrutiny. Christianity makes an even bolder claim. It says it is not just one religious option among many, but the actual truth about God, reality, and the human condition. If that claim is legitimate, honest questions, even the sharpest ones, are not a threat. They are an opportunity.

That is exactly what this “Got Questions?” series is about. We are putting the jewel on the table, turning on the lights, and examining it together. I hope you will discover the Christian faith does not shrink from investigation. It welcomes it, and it offers thoughtful, satisfying answers to those who are willing to listen with an open mind and weigh the evidence fairly.

Here is the first one: “How can we know God exists?”

This is not just a philosophical puzzle. It is a deeply personal question. If there is no God, then we are alone in a silent universe, left to invent our own meaning. If there is a God, everything changes. If you are asking this question, you are not alone, and the Bible does not tell you to shut off your mind. Scripture teaches that God has not left us in the dark about His existence. He has given clear pointers in the world around us, in our own hearts, and supremely in His Son, Jesus Christ.

The first thing to notice is this: the Bible does not begin with formal philosophical arguments for God’s existence. From the very first verse, “In the beginning, God…” (Genesis 1:1), His reality is simply assumed. There is no opening chapter of arguments, only the declaration that God is, and that He is the Creator of all things. The Bible also says, “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God'” (Psalm 14:1). Now, nobody likes being called a fool, and I’m not using this verse to insult anyone’s intelligence. The Bible’s point is that denying God isn’t a sign of superior thinking but of a heart condition all of us naturally share until God opens our eyes. In Scripture, “the fool” is not someone mentally slow, but someone who denies what is plain and obvious.

Romans 1 says that people “suppress the truth” about God. The idea is to hold down what keeps pushing up, like pressing a beach ball underwater. Paul writes that God’s eternal power and divine nature “have been clearly perceived … so that they are without excuse” (Romans 1:20). In other words, not believing in God is not just one respectable option among many. It is a moral response to truth we know deep down, even as we push it away. Many honest atheists would say, “I’m not suppressing anything. I genuinely don’t see the evidence.” The Bible’s answer is that sin’s distorting effect runs deeper than we realize, affecting even what seems obvious to us. This isn’t about intelligence or sincerity, but about the spiritual condition we all share until God opens our eyes. That should not make Christians proud or harsh, but humble, because all of us by nature resist the God who has made Himself known to us.

First, we see evidence of God in creation itself. Whether you look through a telescope at the vastness of space or through a microscope at the intricate machinery of a single cell, you are not looking at an accident. Consider DNA: a four-letter information system that writes the instructions for every cell in your body. Even the fine balance of our own planet points to this. The sun is about 93 million miles away from the earth. If our planet were significantly closer, life would burn away. If it were much farther, the earth would freeze. Critics say we only think this is remarkable because we’re the ones who survived to notice it. But that doesn’t explain why the universe permits life at all, or why its fundamental constants are set with such precision that even tiny variations would make chemistry itself impossible. The odds against a life-permitting universe are staggeringly high.

Now, some will say, “But couldn’t evolution explain apparent design without a Designer?” Here’s the thing: even if evolution describes how life develops, it doesn’t explain why there’s a universe capable of evolution in the first place, or why it’s governed by rational laws our minds can understand. You still need a Lawgiver behind the laws of nature.

Many thoughtful scientists have been struck by this kind of design. Dr. Ming Wang, a Harvard and MIT trained eye surgeon, spent decades as an atheist. After performing over 55,000 eye surgeries, he concluded that the staggering complexity of the human eye could not be explained by blind chance. A professor’s simple question shattered his atheism: “If a pile of random metal cannot assemble itself into a car, how could the far more complex human eye arise by pure randomness?” Dr. Wang now tells young people they do not have to choose between science and faith, but can embrace both under the Lordship of Christ. The Bible says, “The heavens declare the glory of God” (Psalm 19:1). Just as a painting points to a painter, the finely tuned, intelligible world we live in points to an intelligent, powerful Creator. It is reasonable to believe that a personal God stands behind a world filled with design, order, and beauty.

Second, we sense God’s reality in our own consciences. Across cultures and throughout history, people have had an inner sense that some things are truly right and wrong, and that our choices matter. The Bible explains that God has written His law on our hearts (Romans 2:15). Even when we do something wrong in secret, we often feel that inner sting. That is more than social conditioning. It is God’s law pressing on our consciences. Our thirst for justice, our outrage at evil, and our longing for ultimate meaning are not random feelings. They are signposts that point beyond ourselves to a moral Lawgiver, One who cares about good and evil and will one day set all things right.

C.S. Lewis pointed out that when two people argue, they almost always appeal to some standard of fairness they expect the other person to recognize. We don’t just have different preferences. We act as if real moral truth exists that applies to both of us. That only makes sense if there’s a Moral Lawgiver beyond us both.

Here’s why this matters so urgently: that inner sense of right and wrong isn’t just informing you that God exists. It’s warning you that you’ll one day answer to Him. Every one of us has violated that law written on our hearts. The bad news is we’re accountable. The good news is that God has provided a way of escape through Jesus Christ.

Third, God has made Himself known in history through Jesus Christ. The claim of Christianity is not that we discovered God by our own efforts, but that God came to us. Jesus did not only teach about God. He claimed to be God in human flesh and backed that claim with His sinless life, His public miracles, His sacrificial death, and His bodily resurrection on the third day. The New Testament does not present the resurrection as a vague spiritual idea, but as a real historical event. The tomb was empty. The risen Christ appeared to many witnesses. The resurrection isn’t just well-attested. It explains things that otherwise make no sense. Why would the disciples, terrified and scattered after the crucifixion, suddenly become bold enough to face torture and death? Why would they invent a story where women (whose testimony wasn’t valued in that culture) were the first witnesses? Why did the movement explode in the very city where Jesus was executed, where His body could have been produced to stop Christianity before it started? The apostles were willing to suffer and die rather than deny what they had seen and heard. On that basis, they proclaimed that God has made Jesus “both Lord and Christ” (Acts 2:36), and that He “will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31).

Ultimately, the question of God’s existence is not merely about winning a debate. It is an invitation. The God who made you calls you to know Him, to be forgiven through Jesus’ death on the cross, and to receive new life by His resurrection. If you are wrestling with this, here is a good next step: pray honestly, “God, if You are there, please show Yourself to me.” Then begin reading the Gospel of John with an open Bible and an open mind. Christians are not better than anyone else. We are sinners whom God has graciously opened to the truth we once resisted. If you sense that you have been pushing this truth away, you are not alone. All of us, by nature, do the same until God, in His kindness, opens our eyes. If you want to go deeper on this, consider reading Tim Keller’s The Reason for God or R. C. Sproul’s If There’s a God, Why Are There Atheists?, and we would be glad to talk with you in person at King’s Church.