So now apparently annihilationism is “heresy”

[Brandan]

The “h” word loves to be slung around online like it’s an every day term.... Here is one of the latest I’ve stumbled across: https://www.reformingamericaministri...ian-Supporters

I wouldn’t call myself an annihilationist. I am unsure exactly what the exact destiny is of the reprobate - other than it is a non-salvific destruction for their evil deeds. But seriously, what is it with people using the “h” word with everything that is contrary to what they believe? Ugh...

[Bob Higby]

All I can say is, how is the traditional doctrine of 'hell' as perceived by most of those in 'orthodoxy' a part of the true gospel of eternal election and imputed justification in Christ's person and work assured by faith alone, the 'grace and truth' that came in Christ alone that is to judge all things? "I accepted Jesus as my savior to escape hell', specifically the 'hell' taught by traditional evan-jelly-fish-anity, is never anything I see preached by Christ's apostles in the New Testament.

This, of course, does not deny the truth of the final resurrection of both just in Christ to life eternal and unjust outside of Christ to eternal punishment. But there are a lot of surrounding issues of the last 2000 years that mitigate the gospel perspective on God's wrath on reprobates. The debate of "Two Views of Hell" (Robert Peterson vs. Edward Fudge") in no way addresses the issue of how the doctrine of final punishment is to be judged by the true gospel. It is a debate on technical biblical terminology. There is nothing about the 'elephant in the room' involved that anti-gospel men have taught since the death of the apostles--which is a dualistic view of eternity future that exalts the devil and his angels as the rulers of 'hell' and those who will administer the torture of human beings without limit based alone on having 'sinned in Adam'. This is proposed to be a scenario that God and Christ will weep over because "it could not be otherwise" according to eternal justice (as in John Howe-Redeemer's Tears Wept Over Lost Souls).

I have stopped using the word 'hell' in teaching biblical truth. I only use the 3 equivalent words or concepts it is translated from--the 'realm of death' (Hades), the gloomy abode of devils (Tartarus), and the wasteland or garbage dump populated by reprobate humans after their resurrection (Gehenna).

Final punishment is a divine comedy where Christ and the redeemed saints laugh at the calamity of the reprobate who laughed at the gospel of grace, not a divine tragedy. All traditional views focus on the torture chamber that Christ and the redeemed saints weep over since God could not prevent it.

Bob