Hank Hanegraaff Speaks Out On The Existence of Hell

[Brian]

"The first reason I believe in hell's irrevocable reality is that Christ communicated that hell was real. In fact, in the Sermon on the Mount alone He explicitly warned His followers about the dangers of hell a half a dozen or more times.
Secondly, I believe that the concept of choice demands that we believe in hell. Without hell there's no choice, and without choice heaven would not be heaven, heaven would be hell. The righteous would inherit a counterfeit heaven and the unrighteous would be incarcerated in heaven against their wills, which would be a torture worse than hell. Imagine spending a lifetime voluntarily distancing yourself from God only in the end to find yourself involuntarily dragged into His loving presence for all eternity! The alternative to hell is worse than hell itself in that it is taking humans who are made in the image of God and stripping them of freedom and forcing them to worship God against their wills.
So the first reason I believe in hell is Christ taught there was a hell and you can demonstrate that Jesus Christ is the one who spoke and the universe leapt into existence. The second reason I believe in hell is choice demands that there be a hell. Without hell there's no choice.
There's one other reason I should cite, and that is common sense dictates that there must be a hell. Without hell the wrongs of Hitler's holocaust are never going to be righted. Justice would be impugned if, after slaughtering 6 million Jews, Hitler would merely die in the comforting arms of his mistress with no eternal consequences. The ancients knew better than to think such a thing. David knew that for a time it might seem as though the wicked prosper in spite of their deeds but in the end justice would be served.
Common sense also dictates that without a hell there's no need for a Savior. Little needs to be said about the absurdity of suggesting that the Creator would suffer more than the cumulative sufferings of all of mankind if there's no hell to save us from. Without hell there's no need for salvation. Without salvation there's no need for a sacrifice, and without a sacrifice there's no need for a Savior.
As much as we might want to think that all will be saved, I think that common sense precludes the possibility. So I believe in hell first and foremost because Christ taught there was a hell. Secondly, because choice demands there be a hell. Thirdly, because common sense dictates there is a hell."

http://www.equip.org/site/apps/nlnet/content2.aspx?c=muI1LaMNJrE&b=4197151&content_id={30CEF878-7657-4A0D-86FF-21BFCA9A3C56}&notoc=1

[Paul Hazelwood]

Hi MacPherson,

Are you posting this with your agreement with it or just for something for some to go through and poke holes in if they desire?

Just curious since it usually is better, for me anyway, to bother with articles such as this when the poster is prepared to discuss their agreement with it.  Especially so when the poster is not the original author.

[Brian]

Hi MacPherson,

Are you posting this with your agreement with it or just for something for some to go through and poke holes in if they desire?

Just curious since it usually is better, for me anyway, to bother with articles such as this when the poster is prepared to discuss their agreement with it.  Especially so when the poster is not the original author.

Just something for some to go through and poke holes in if they desire.

[Paul Hazelwood]

Thanks!!

[willieH]

Hi MacPherson,

Are you posting this with your agreement with it or just for something for some to go through and poke holes in if they desire?

Just curious since it usually is better, for me anyway, to bother with articles such as this when the poster is prepared to discuss their agreement with it.  Especially so when the poster is not the original author.

Just something for some to go through and poke holes in if they desire.

No need to do so... it is so full of holes that it already looks like an abandoned pin cussion...

In...

JESUS ...Name above ALL names... 


...willieH 

[martincisneros]

Hanegiraff has gone after my spiritual father so many times, that to me, Bugs Bunny would be more believable on an accurate depiction of Hell.  Anybody got any refutations of the depictions of Hell on Bugs Bunny?  I'm struggling with the Scriptures on that one.

[martincisneros]

I haven't clicked on the link for Hannegiraffe's page, so I'm just going by what's already posted in the opening post:

1. The old abusive Parent argument that says that todlers can only have the expression of free will by blowing their heads off with a 357 or a 9mm.
2. The erroneous idea that sinners long for punishment rather than for paradise, although they generally work harder for paradise in this world than the righteous.
3. The erroneous idea that sinners rejecting Christians is in the same category as rejecting Christ when the opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the teachings of the man from Nazareth that was dying to prove a point.
4. The mistaken idea that Hell's anywhere in Jesus's teachings when lots of threads already deal with Gehenna around here as Jerusalem's city dump and being merely the consequence of false teachers, false teaching, abuses of the tongue, and the wheel of nature being set in motion against one's life in this life.
5. The mistaken idea that Christ saves us from Hell, but leaves us in our sins so that He might prove us whether or not we'll cling to Him our whole life long for the promise of salvation alone rather than the assurance of Scripture that we already have eonian life.
6. The mistaken idea that Hitler created a greater cost with his sin than the check that God wrote with the Blood of Christ.
7. The mistaken idea that his common sense is Scriptural sense regarding the ransom for all spoken of in 1Timothy 2:6.  A ransom for all that doesn't in fact pay for all?  What insightful unbelief, eh?
8. And reading the promises through his tradition, he evidently above all doesn't see where the promises assure us of Christ actually accomplishing all that the Father sent Him to do.
9.  There's the mistaken idea that King David and others in the Scriptures shared in his unbelief of Christ's Kingdom ruling generously over all.
10.  Not sure if Hannegiraffe is involved in the typical premillenial Judealotry, but the righteous demands of Christ-rejecting-blood are being cited on the 6 million Jews that died.  Hitler's sin was no worse than theirs.  And Christ paid it all, and the price can't be extracted a second time by a perpetual Hell or by eternal obliteration.

The Scriptures do teach that many are banished from Him.  That's emphatic in 2Samuel 14:14, but He devises means so that His banished ones aren't expelled from Him.  I've yet to find the proof that His banished ones are expelled from Him.

[jabcat]

I used to listen to Hanegraaff...it's frightening now to think so many take in what he says and see him as truly their "Bible Answer Man"...sad.

And very good post, Martin.

[Brian]

I used to listen to Hanegraaff...it's frightening now to think so many take in what he says and see him as truly their "Bible Answer Man"...sad.
And very good post, Martin.

On the plus side, I just heard him blast Mary K. Baxter apart. He also said that descriptions of hell are purely symbolic and not to be taken literally. In other words, not a torture machine, but terrible because one is removed from the presence of God. Billy Graham holds that view too. Not exactly UR, but a step up from the idea of God actually barbequing His children.

[sven]

Without hell the wrongs of Hitler's holocaust are never going to be righted.

Jews, homosexuals, atheist communists are considered to go to hell also, so the victims of the holocaust would have the same fate as Hitler

the holocaust is the worst argument for hell, claiming God would run an eternal torture camp worse than Hitler

[jabcat]

I used to listen to Hanegraaff...it's frightening now to think so many take in what he says and see him as truly their "Bible Answer Man"...sad.
And very good post, Martin.

On the plus side, I just heard him blast Mary K. Baxter apart. He also said that descriptions of hell are purely symbolic and not to be taken literally. In other words, not a torture machine, but terrible because one is removed from the presence of God. Billy Graham holds that view too. Not exactly UR, but a step up from the idea of God actually barbequing His children.

that actually is an "improvement"...still missing much of God's BIG PLAN, but I actually do respect that much of their view.

[martincisneros]

Someone might choke me later, but Billy Graham is actually closet UR and has been open in a limited context before about acknowledging it's truth but believing it wasn't a truth for his generation.

[Average_Bear]

I remember reading this awhile back. I, too, used to listen to the Bible Answer Man.

Notice he quotes no scripture in this little article

The first reason I believe in hell's irrevocable reality is that Christ communicated that hell was real. In fact, in the Sermon on the Mount alone He explicitly warned His followers about the dangers of hell a half a dozen or more times.

Gehenna is a real place on earth, not an eternal torture chamber. Hank should know better. Jesus warned about judgment, particularly national judgment, and punishment of sin, as well as the principle of reaping what you sow. But Jesus didn't warn the masses about "hell", only the pharisees and his own disciples.

Secondly, I believe that the concept of choice demands that we believe in hell.

The concept of choice? What the "hell" is he talking about? Free will? People have the power to make choices, that's about it. Is our freedom of choice greater than Almighty God's soveign will to save us? (1 Tim. 2:4)

the unrighteous would be incarcerated in heaven against their wills, which would be a torture worse than hell. Imagine spending a lifetime voluntarily distancing yourself from God only in the end to find yourself involuntarily dragged into His loving presence for all eternity!

 incarcerated against their wills?????? and being dragged into his loving presense for all eternity.  That would be soooo terrible, so much worse than burning eternally in hell!!!! Didn't Jesus promise to do just that "drag all unto me" (and I don't think they'll be kicking and screaming)

forcing them to worship God against their wills.
"Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" Believers in ET interpret this verse to be exactly that - that God will force billions of unbelievers to confess Him as Lord, just before he casts them into the Lake-a-Fire!!  :omg:

common sense dictates that there must be a hell.
No, common sense dictates that there will be justice, sin will be punished (or forgiven). But the idea of eternal punishment defies not only common sense, but sanity.

the wrongs of Hitler's holocaust are never going to be righted.
Hell won't right them either. As someone else pointed out, the doctrine of hell demands that most of Hitler's victims will be with him in hell - yeah right, that would really serve justice.

without a hell there's no need for a Savior. Little needs to be said about the absurdity of suggesting that the Creator would suffer more than the cumulative sufferings of all of mankind if there's no hell to save us from.
This is the stupidest pro-hell arguement I've ever heard. Can you site one single verse in the entire scripture that defines salvation as being saved from hell? Where does the Bible say that Jesus died to save us from hell?

As much as we might want to think that all will be saved, I think that common sense precludes the possibility.

There he's goes again with "common sense" Maybe believing all will be saved is not common sense, but if Jesus is the Savior of the World - wouldn't he at least save the world. If he is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, then he paid an unmeasurable price to redeem the world. Will he get what he paid for? It is folks like Hank who believe Christ died in vain. That's my

[jabcat]

   What an awful fate to be unwillingly dragged into God's presence...   Is that nuts?  The really amazing thing is, hundreds of thousands/millions of people swallow this without much of a second thought  .  God's blessing, James.

I'm gon'na explore the Billy Graham thing...what a boost to the UR message that would be if it became widely known...or, probably many/most would just reject him and cling to their hell.

[martincisneros]

The closest thing to it on the net is the creed at the website of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, if they haven't changed it since so many UR sites started linking to it.  Perhaps they've done so on the word of the same little birdie that gave me the specifics on him believing in UR.  Oral Roberts is there too.  Quiet for the same reasons as Billy Graham.  ""Not for his generation.""  And as you think it through with the intolerance of the previous generations, they were likely correct.  I don't see how Oral wouldn't have eventually seen it, though, since God used him to restore to his generation the Biblical revelation of Seed-faith.  My gut instinct is that it's that particular truth of Scripture that explains why I've had about 50 or 60 dreams over the last 8 years of Kenneth Copeland teaching the Universal Restoration in those big Convention Center meetings that he has.  I mean, totally going off on it.  The message of sowing and reaping is a head-on collision with UR waiting to happen.  As the grace of God has been shifting on my life and I've been heading back more and more towards a Word of Faith emphasis, I've been noticing it more and more and thinking "GEEZ, I've always been UR." LOL!  It's just sooo blatant in the sowing and reaping message.

You've got to remember, though, that folks like Oral Roberts and Billy Graham have been best buds with T.L. Osborn who's more blatant about his UR than any of us usually are.  I genuinely doubt that T.L. Osborn believes in afterlife correction of any kind.  Just from what I've heard from his preaching for the years and years and years that his program was on TBN.  I always loved T.L. Osborn in a special way, knowing there was something special/unique/different about him.  But I never knew what the difference was until this decade when God detonated the eternal hell myth for me.  No specific quotes in mind, but I have a sneaky suspicion that T.L. Osborn is a Postmillenialist as well 'cause that's such an excellent combination for really enhancing the truth.  And I've always felt nothing but the most vibrant LIFE from him.  He not only expects for Christ to save the world, but it's clear in his preaching that he expects for Christ to save this world through the Gospel being taught to every nation with a prophetic revelatory edge accompanied by signs, wonders, and miracles.

[jabcat]

I'm on board with T.L. Osborn...but didn't Oral R. turn on Pearson when he went to his (extreme) version of UR?  Maybe it's not correct, but I thought that's what I'd heard...

[Paul Hazelwood]

I'm on board with T.L. Osborn...but didn't Oral R. turn on Pearson when he went to his (extreme) version of UR?  Maybe it's not correct, but I thought that's what I'd heard...

Pearson was removed from the board of regents at oral roberts university due to those theological differences.

For many Pastors,  entertaining universalism by hinting at it in sermons, and risking losing your empire by embracing it and proudly expressing that side of scripture is two different things.

[martincisneros]

That was mainly because Richard Roberts and Billy Joe Daugherty were so ticked off.  Nothing to do with Oral Roberts.  Takes more than one person to remove someone from a board at most places.  Usually a consensus is created by talking about someone behind their back, and then a vote's taken.  The likelihood that there was an unconscious question mark about the future of the University's funding by having a uni on the board is probably half of what they reacted to.  Billy Joe Daugherty's wife has been on their television program within the last couple of months or so just absolutely going off about all of the evils of universalism.  And she was talking about unitarianism in the modern sense, but being very very emphatic that these were the unquestionable evils of all things universalist. 

It was such blatant slander that I wanted to go to Tulsa and slap her mouth for just a second.  I mean, it was really, really bad!  You couldn't ever pay me or in any other way obligate me to ever hit a woman.  But just that one time, I wanted to sooooo badly, the self righteousness and the slander was so calculated; so Pharisaical on a level that I'd personally never seen before.  I don't doubt that there is a new age type of all-things-relative humanistic whatever that would fit the description of what she was talking about, but you would have just had to heard her to know what I'm talking about.  She was emphatic that these were the beliefs of all universalists, etc.  And she went on and on and on to try to intimidate anyone that might have possibly been in that congregation that might have been secretely hearing Carlton or some of the rest of us out.

[jabcat]

  I don't doubt that there is a new age type of all-things-relative humanistic whatever that would fit the description of what she was talking about, but you would have just had to heard her to know what I'm talking about.  She was emphatic that these were the beliefs of all universalists, etc. 

I think this is often the case, at least some version, to varying degrees...I would venture to say 90+% of people who would be against universalism actually know VERY little about it.  Like you say though, if hers was with awareness and calculated for a purpose, that's even a different story, huh?

[Fang_Diachi]

I remember reading this awhile back. I, too, used to listen to the Bible Answer Man.

Notice he quotes no scripture in this little article

The first reason I believe in hell's irrevocable reality is that Christ communicated that hell was real. In fact, in the Sermon on the Mount alone He explicitly warned His followers about the dangers of hell a half a dozen or more times.

Gehenna is a real place on earth, not an eternal torture chamber. Hank should know better. Jesus warned about judgment, particularly national judgment, and punishment of sin, as well as the principle of reaping what you sow. But Jesus didn't warn the masses about "hell", only the pharisees and his own disciples.

Secondly, I believe that the concept of choice demands that we believe in hell.

The concept of choice? What the "hell" is he talking about? Free will? People have the power to make choices, that's about it. Is our freedom of choice greater than Almighty God's soveign will to save us? (1 Tim. 2:4)

the unrighteous would be incarcerated in heaven against their wills, which would be a torture worse than hell. Imagine spending a lifetime voluntarily distancing yourself from God only in the end to find yourself involuntarily dragged into His loving presence for all eternity!

 incarcerated against their wills?????? and being dragged into his loving presense for all eternity.  That would be soooo terrible, so much worse than burning eternally in hell!!!! Didn't Jesus promise to do just that "drag all unto me" (and I don't think they'll be kicking and screaming)

forcing them to worship God against their wills.
"Every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord" Believers in ET interpret this verse to be exactly that - that God will force billions of unbelievers to confess Him as Lord, just before he casts them into the Lake-a-Fire!!  :omg:

common sense dictates that there must be a hell.
No, common sense dictates that there will be justice, sin will be punished (or forgiven). But the idea of eternal punishment defies not only common sense, but sanity.

the wrongs of Hitler's holocaust are never going to be righted.
Hell won't right them either. As someone else pointed out, the doctrine of hell demands that most of Hitler's victims will be with him in hell - yeah right, that would really serve justice.

without a hell there's no need for a Savior. Little needs to be said about the absurdity of suggesting that the Creator would suffer more than the cumulative sufferings of all of mankind if there's no hell to save us from.
This is the stupidest pro-hell arguement I've ever heard. Can you site one single verse in the entire scripture that defines salvation as being saved from hell? Where does the Bible say that Jesus died to save us from hell?

As much as we might want to think that all will be saved, I think that common sense precludes the possibility.

There he's goes again with "common sense" Maybe believing all will be saved is not common sense, but if Jesus is the Savior of the World - wouldn't he at least save the world. If he is the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, then he paid an unmeasurable price to redeem the world. Will he get what he paid for? It is folks like Hank who believe Christ died in vain. That's my

Amen.  Great answer. 

[Andromeda_Organa]

The way he describes God makes HItler sound like Mother Teresa.

[Brian]

The way he describes God makes HItler sound like Mother Teresa.

A Turn or Burn street evangelist told me she's probably in hell too, because she's not on record as saying Jesus was her savior. Or something like that...

Just for the record: Jesus is my Lord and Savior!

Bill

[jabcat]

The way he describes God makes HItler sound like Mother Teresa.

A Turn or Burn street evangelist told me she's probably in hell too, because she's not on record as saying Jesus was her savior. Or something like that...

Just for the record: Jesus is my Lord and Savior!

Bill

Whew! 

[Andromeda_Organa]

The way he describes God makes HItler sound like Mother Teresa.

A Turn or Burn street evangelist told me she's probably in hell too, because she's not on record as saying Jesus was her savior. Or something like that...

Just for the record: Jesus is my Lord and Savior!

Bill

Hasn't that person heard the saying 'actions speak louder than words?'

[Brian]

It was such blatant slander that I wanted to go to Tulsa and slap her mouth for just a second.  I mean, it was really, really bad!  You couldn't ever pay me or in any other way obligate me to ever hit a woman.  But just that one time, I wanted to sooooo badly, the self righteousness and the slander was so calculated; so Pharisaical on a level that I'd personally never seen before. 

That's what cream pies are for.

Bill