Monday 2 November 2009

Hell and CS Lewis

Speaking of hell, here's John Piper observing that CS Lewis gets this wrong.

Jesus makes it clear that hell is a place of horror:

We should ask: How did Jesus expect his audience to think and feel about the way he spoke of hell? The words he chose were not chosen to soften the horror by being accommodating to cultural sensibilities. He spoke of a “fiery furnace” (Matthew 13:42), and “weeping and gnashing teeth” (Luke 13:28), and “outer darkness” (Matthew 25:30), and “their worm [that] does not die” (Mark 9:48), and “eternal punishment” (Matthew 25:46), and “unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43), and being “cut in pieces” (Matthew 24:51).


We must pray that our academic theologians would speak of hell as severely and terrifyingly as their Lord did.

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