I just finished reading Erasing Hell by Francis Chan. After reading Chan’s Crazy Love (about truly living out the gospel) and Forgotten God (about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives), I knew that this would be a great read that would challenge my thinking. Chan wrote this book as somewhat of a response to Rob Bell’s Love Wins. I’ll reserve my comments on Bell’s book because I don’t intend to read it.
One of the main reasons I look forward to hearing Chan speak or reading his books is because he simply points people to the Bible and challenges you to dig in and see what it says. Whenever I am reading his books, I always read with two highlighters. I use one color (yellow) to highlight thoughts that I find interesting. I use the other color (blue) to highlight Scripture passages that Chan includes. It never fails…there is always a lot more blue than yellow. Chan’s goal is to point people to Jesus, not to himself.
I pray that God will use this book and the awareness I now have to help ramp up the urgency with which I share Christ with those around me. Here are some thoughts that I highlighted while reading this book.
- While I’ve always believed in hell with my mind, I tried not to let the doctrine penetrate my heart.
- Don’t believe something just because you want to, and don’t embrace an idea just because you’ve always believed it. Believe what is biblical. Test all your assumptions against the precious words God gave us in the Bible.
- No passage in the Bible says that there will be a second chance after death to turn to Jesus.
- Deep down in the heart of every person is a hidden desire to reinterpret Jesus in light of our own culture, political bent, or favorite theological belief.
- Through the years, many ideas of hell have been proposed — some attractive, some not. But if truth is what we are after, we need to stick to what Jesus actually said.
- Hell is a place of punishment after judgment.
- Hell is described in imagery of fire and darkness.
- Hell is a place of annihilation or never-ending punishment.
- Jesus chose strong and terrifying language when He spoke of hell. I believe He chose to speak this way because He loves us and wanted to warn us.
- We are bound by the words of the Creator, the One who will do what is right. The One who invented justice and knows perfectly what the unbeliever deserves. God has never asked us to figure out His justice or to see if His way of doing things is morally right. He has only asked us to embrace His Word and bow the kness, to tremble at His word, as Isaiah says (66:2).
- Don’t get so lost in deciphering that you forget to tremble.
- God is compassionate and just, loving and holy, wrathful and forgiving. We can’t sideline His more difficult attributes to make room for the palatable ones.
- It’s very easy to get caught up in arguments and word studies and theological views, and yet miss the main point. This is real. We’re talking about the fate of actual people.
- Put simply, failing to help the poo could damn you to hell.
- God wants us to do more than intellectually agree with the words of Scripture: He wants us to live in light of them. Like the ER doctor who socks the dead back to life, belief in hell should rescue our complacent hearts from the suffocating grip of passivity.
- We need to surrender our perceived right to determine what is just and humbly recognize that God alone gets to decide how He is going to deal with people.
- It’s incredibly arrogant to pick and choose which incomprehensible truths we embrace. No one wants to ditch God’s plan of redemption, even though it doesn’t make sense to us. Neither should we erase God’s revealed plan of punishment because it doesn’t sit well with us. As soon as we do this, we are putting God’s actions in submission to our own reasoning, which is a ridiculous thing for clay to do.
- A sense of urgency over the reality of hell should recharge our passion for the gospel as it did for Paul, who, “knowing the fear of the Lord,” persuaded people to believe (2 Cor 5:11).
- One of the unexpected blessings that came from this study has been a deeper sense of gratitude for the cross.
- While hell can be a paralyzing doctrine, it can also be an energizing one, for it magnifies the beauty of the cross.
- Hell is the backdrop that reveals the profound and unbelievable grace of the cross. It brings to light the enormity of our sin and therefore portrays the undeserved favor of God in full color.