为何地狱的教义对福音来说不可或缺
当你知道本期九标志期刊关注的是地狱这话题，我肯定你是乐不可支。实际上，这话题说起来都会让我们想转移目光，去思想其他截然不同的事。
对一些人来说，基督教关于地狱的教义非常可怕——那是一个神的仇敌有意识永远受刑罚的地方——这让他们不仅转移眼光和心思，而且全然否认这教义。他们说：“肯定的是，地狱是一个虚构编造的地方，为的是用恐惧压制人；一位爱的神绝不可能容许这样的地方真的存在。” 肯定的是，这种论证有一种情感的力量。没有人，当然也包括基督徒会喜欢地狱这观念。
但这教义并不仅仅是基督徒世界观装饰的一面，与信仰本身的架构没有切实关系。地狱的教义也不是一种让人尴尬、多余、原始的累赘，只是因为我们被告知必须相信，我们就不得不相信的教义。
相反，地狱的教义和实在确实让福音的荣耀强烈凸显在我们面前。这教义帮助我们明白，不仅神真的是如此伟大，我们真的是如此有罪可怜，神竟然向我们显出恩典，这是何等说不出的奇妙。而且，如果我们不把地狱从我们思想排挤出去，它的实在就要让我们首要聚焦关注这任务，就是向那些有在地狱度过永世危险的人宣告福音。
记住这一点，以下就是五条符合圣经、关于地狱的陈述，整体加以理解，就证明为什么地狱对于福音来说不可或缺。
为什么地狱对于福音来说不可或缺
1.圣经教导说，有一个称为地狱的实在地方。
我不会详细说明这一点。其他人已经非常清楚证明了这一点。我只说一点就够了，就是中世纪的主教并没有发明地狱的教义，用它威吓农奴；他们是从使徒领受了这教义。使徒没有发明这教义，用它来恐吓异教徒；他们是从耶稣领受了这教义。耶稣不是从拜火教徒借用了这教义，用它来威胁法利赛人；祂是神，所以知道地狱是真实的，就这样说了。除此以外，旧约圣经已经启示了地狱的真实性。
所以在最基本的层面，如果我们宣称自己是基督徒，相信圣经是神的话语，我们就要认识到圣经教导地狱是实在的。但除此以外还有更多。
2.地狱让我们看到我们的罪实际上是何等可憎。
你是否曾听过有人这样论证，人的罪没有一样配得在地狱受永远折磨？这是很有意思的论证，大大揭示出人心的光景。为什么当人思想地狱时总是得出结论，神、而不是他们自己必然有错。你可以看到这教义如何揭示出我们内心的光景：当我们思想我们自己的罪，我们第一个倾向总是对这罪做最小化处理，抗议说这罪并没有如此糟糕，神说这罪配受刑罚，祂是错了。
地狱的实在强烈驳斥了这种自我称义。非基督徒总是把地狱的可怕看作是对神的一种控告，但身为认识到神是完全公平公义的基督徒，我们必须明白地狱的可怕实际上是对我们的指控。我们可能要把我们的罪做最小化处理，或为它找借口，或尝试论证压制我们的良心。但神已经宣告我们因着这些罪配受永远折磨，这事实应当提醒我们，这些罪根本不是小罪，它们是极其邪恶的罪。
3.地狱让我们看到，神的公义是何等不可摇动、无可指摘。
贯穿历史，人总是受到试探，认为神是一位枉法的审判官，完全是因为他喜欢被告人，就把公义的要求放在一边。这论证说：“我们都是神的儿女，神怎么可能对祂的一些儿女发出如此可怕的判决？”对这问题的回答很简单：神并不是一位枉法的审判官，祂是绝对公平公义。
圣经一次又一次表明这一点。当神向摩西启示祂自己，祂宣告自己充满怜悯与慈爱，但也说祂“万不以有罪的为无罪”。诗篇宣告说：“公义和公平，是祂宝座的根基。”这是何等奇妙的声明！如果神要继续是神，祂就不能只是把公义放在一旁，把罪扫到桌子底下装作看不见。他必须处理这罪——决断地，带着完全的公义处理。当神最终审判时，没有一件罪要领受比它配受更多的惩罚，也没有一件罪要领受比它配受更少的刑罚。
圣经告诉我们说，在那一天，当神判决祂的仇敌下地狱时，全宇宙都要认识和承认，祂所决定的是公平正确，无可指摘。以赛亚书第5章极清楚地说明了这一点：“阴间扩张其欲，开了无限量的口。”这是一幅可怕的画面，坟墓张开口吞噬耶路撒冷的居民。然而以赛亚宣告，因此“万军之耶和华，因公平而崇高，圣者神，因公义显为圣。”类似，罗9:22告诉我们，通过地狱的刑罚，神要“显明祂的忿怒，彰显祂的权能”，“将祂丰盛的荣耀彰显在那蒙怜悯早预备得荣耀的器皿上。”
我们现在也许不能完全明白这一点，但有一天地狱本身要宣告神的荣耀，它，连同它的可怕，甚至要与诗人一道见证“公义和公平，是祂宝座的根基”。
4.地狱让我们看到十字架实际上是何等可怕，神的恩典实际上是何等伟大。
罗马书第3章告诉我们，神设立耶稣作挽回祭，“要显明神的义。”祂这样做，是要“用忍耐的心宽容人先时所犯的罪”。
耶稣为什么非要死在十字架上不可？因为这是神不把我们任何人送下地狱，却为公义的唯一方法。耶稣要承担我们当受的，这意味着祂挂在十字架上时要忍受那等同于地狱的刑罚。这并不是指耶稣实际下了地狱，但确实意味着钉子和荆棘只不过是耶稣受苦的开始。祂受苦真正的高峰，是在神把祂的忿怒倾注在耶稣身上时临到。当黑暗降临时，这不是如一些人所说，仅仅是神掩盖祂儿子的受苦。这是咒诅的黑暗，神忿怒的黑暗。这是地狱的黑暗，在那一刻，耶稣忍受地狱完全的忿怒，全能神怒气极大的忿怒。
如果你是一位基督徒，当你在这光照之下认识十字架时，你就可以开始更好认识神对你的恩典是何等浩大。耶稣承担的救赎使命，包括委身代替你忍受神的忿怒，取过你配得的地狱。这是慈爱与怜悯何等奇妙的彰显！然而只有当你理解、接受地狱的恐惧，想到这恐惧就不寒而栗时，你才会清楚看到和明白这爱的彰显。
5.地狱让我们集中思想宣告福音这项任务。
如果地狱是真实的，如果人真是落入在地狱中度过永恒的危险，那么最迫切重要的任务，莫过于就是完全按着耶稣升天之前告诉门徒要做的去做——向全世界宣告通过耶稣基督传给人，罪得赦免的好消息！
我认为约翰·派博在接受福音联盟的访谈中说得完全正确：“如果你相信有地狱，在今生之后，不信福音的人要无休止受苦，你就很难放弃福音。” 基督徒能做各种各样的好事，实际上应该做各种各样的好事！但如果地狱是真实的，那就值得记住—不，我们必须记住，这是神的命令—基督徒能做这世界上任何其他人都不能做的一件事，就是告诉人他们的罪如何能得赦免，他们如何能避免在地狱里度过永世。
结论
毫无疑问，地狱的教义是可怕的。这教义可怕，因为现实是可怕的。但我们没有理由转移目光忽视不看，更没有理由拒绝这教义。
一些人认为，他们讲道时拒绝或至少忽略这教义，这就让神变得更荣耀、更有慈爱。事情远非如此！他们实际上在做的，是毫无智慧地偷窃了救主耶稣基督的荣耀，仿佛祂拯救我们脱离的……其实并没有如此糟糕。
事实上，我们得救脱离的那可怕现实，只会更凸显我们已经得救进入的那荣耀。不仅如此，当我们越来越清楚看到地狱的可怕，我们看为我们忍受了那地狱，拯救我们的那一位时，就会对祂有越来越大的爱、越来越大的感恩，对祂有越来越多的敬拜。
Why Hell Is Integral to the Gospel
I’m sure you were overjoyed to learn that this issue of the 9Marks Journal focuses on the topic of hell. In fact, it’s a topic that, if anything, makes us want to avert our eyes and think about something else entirely.
For some, the horror of the Christian doctrine of hell—that it is a place of eternal, conscious torment where God’s enemies are punished—has led them not just to avert their eyes and minds, but to deny it entirely. “Surely,” they say, “hell is a fictional construct used to oppress people with fear; a God of love would never allow such a place to really exist.” There’s an emotional power to this argument, to be sure. No one, certainly no Christian, likes the idea of hell.
At the same time, this doctrine isn’t just drapery on the side of the Christian worldview, something with no relevance to the structure of the faith itself. Nor is the doctrine of hell an embarrassing, unnecessary, primitive wart that we believe just because we’re told we have to.
On the contrary, the doctrine and reality of hell actually throws the glory of the gospel into sharp relief for us. It helps us to understand just how great God really is, how sinfully wretched we really are, and how unutterably amazing it is that he would show us grace at all. Moreover, the reality of hell—if we don’t push it out of our minds—will focus us, above all, on the task of proclaiming the gospel to those who are in danger of spending eternity there.
With that in mind, here are five biblical statements about hell which, taken as a whole, demonstrate why hell is integral to the gospel.
WHY HELL IS INTEGRAL TO THE GOSPEL
1. Scripture teaches that there is a real place called hell.
I won’t belabor this point. Others have made this case with crystal clarity. Suffice it to say that medieval bishops didn’t invent the doctrine of hell as a way to scare the serfs; they got it from the apostles. And the apostles didn’t invent it to scare the pagans; they got it from Jesus. And Jesus didn’t borrow it from the Zoroastrians to scare the Pharisees; he was God, so he knew it to be real, and said so. And besides, hell’s reality had already been revealed in the Old Testament.
At the most basic level, therefore, if we claim to be Christians and to believe that the Bible is the word of God, we have to recognize that the Bible teaches the reality of hell. But there’s more.
2. Hell shows us how heinous our sin really is.
Have you ever heard someone make the argument that no human sin could possibly deserve eternal torment in hell? It’s an interesting argument, one that reveals a lot about the human heart. Why is it that when people think about hell, they always conclude that God must be at fault and not themselves? You can see how the doctrine reveals our hearts: when we consider our own sin, our first inclination is always to minimize it, to protest that it’s not that bad and that God is wrong to say it deserves punishment.
The reality of hell stands as a massive refutation of that self-justification. Non-Christians will always see the horrors of hell as an indictment of God, but as Christians who know God to be perfectly just and righteous, we must understand that the horrors of hell are actually an indictment of us. We may want to minimize our sin, or excuse it, or try to argue our consciences down. But the fact that God has declared that we deserve eternal torment for those sins should remind us that they are not small at all. They are enormously evil.
3. Hell shows us how immovably and unimpeachably just God really is.
People have been tempted throughout history to think of God as a corrupt judge, one who sets aside the demands of justice simply because he likes the defendant. “We are all God’s children,” the argument goes. “How could God hand down such a horrible sentence on some of his children?” The answer to that question is simple: God is not a corrupt judge. He is an absolutely just and righteous one.
Over and over the Bible makes this point. When God reveals himself to Moses, he declares himself to be compassionate and loving, but he also says, “Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished.” The Psalms declare that “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.” What an amazing statement! If God is to continue being God, he cannot simply set justice aside and sweep sin under the rug. He must deal with it—decisively and with exacting justice. When God finally judges, not one sin will receive more punishment than it deserves. And not one will receive less than it deserves, either.
The Bible tells us that on that day, when God sentences his enemies to hell, the whole universe will recognize and acknowledge that what he has decided is unimpeachably just and right. Isaiah 5 makes this point with bracing clarity: “Therefore Sheol has enlarged its appetite and opens its mouth without measure.” It’s a grotesque image, the grave widening its mouth to swallow the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And yet by this means, Isaiah declares, “The Lord of Hosts is exalted in justice, and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness.” Similarly, Romans 9:22 tells us that by the torments of hell, God will “show his wrath and make his power known,” so that he might “make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy.”
We may not understand it fully now, but one day hell itself will declare God’s glory. It will—even in its horror—testify together with the psalmist, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.”
4. Hell shows us how horrific the cross really was, and how great God’s grace really is.
Romans 3 tells us that God put forth Jesus as a sacrifice of atonement “to demonstrate his justice.” He did this “because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished.”
Why did Jesus have to die on the cross? It was because that was the only way God could righteously not send every one of us to hell. Jesus had to take what was due to us, and that means he had to endure the equivalent of hell as he hung on the cross. That doesn’t mean that Jesus actually went to hell. But it does mean that the nails and the thorns were only the beginning of Jesus’ suffering. The true height of his suffering came when God poured out his wrath on Jesus. When the darkness fell, that wasn’t just God covering the suffering of his Son, as some have said. That was the darkness of the curse, of God’s wrath. It was the darkness of hell, and in that moment Jesus was enduring its full fury—the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.
When you understand the cross in that light, you begin to understand better just how magnificent God’s grace to you is, if you are a Christian. The mission of redemption that Jesus undertook involved a commitment to endure God’s wrath in your place, to take the hell that you deserve. What an amazing display of love and mercy that is! Yet you will only see and understand this display of love clearly when you understand, accept, and shudder at the horror of hell.
5. Hell focuses our minds on the task of proclaiming the gospel.
If hell is real, and if people are truly in danger of spending eternity there, then there is no more urgent and important task than doing precisely what Jesus told his apostles to do before he ascended to heaven—proclaim to the world the good news that forgiveness of sins is offered through Jesus Christ!
I think John Piper got it exactly right in an interview with The Gospel Coalition: “It’s very hard to give up on the gospel if you believe there is hell, that after this life, there is an endless suffering for those who did not believe in the gospel.” There are all kinds of good things that Christians can do—and in fact should do! But if hell is real, it is worth keeping in mind—no, it is imperative that we keep in mind—that the one thing that Christians can do that no one else in the world is ever going to do is to tell people how they can be forgiven of their sin, how they can avoid spending an eternity in hell.
CONCLUSION
There is no doubt that the doctrine of hell is horrible. The doctrine is horrible because the reality is horrible. But that’s not a reason to avert our eyes and ignore it, much less to reject it.
There are those who think that, by rejecting or at least ignoring the doctrine in their preaching, they are making God more glorious and more loving. Far from it! What they are really doing is unwittingly stealing glory from the Savior Jesus Christ, as if what he saved us from was…well, not so bad after all.
In fact, the horrific nature of what we have been saved from only intensifies the glory of what we have been saved to. Not only so, but as we see ever more clearly the horror of hell, we look with ever more love, ever more gratitude, and ever greater worship to the One who endured that hell for us and saved us.
作者：Greg Gilbert
毕业于美南浸信会神学院，曾在国会山浸信会实习，现为路易维尔第三大道浸信会主任牧师。
本文翻译肢体：梁曙东
用圣经视野和实用资源装备教会领袖
进而通过健康的教会向世界彰显神的荣耀
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