Though a Presbyterian myself, I have many friends and colleagues in Baptist and other circles, folk who read their Bibles thoughtfully and seek to bring others to Jesus who alone is the way, the truth and the life. Recent correspondence challenging Warren Prestidge’s article, Explore the truth about hell, stems from a desire to be faithful to Scripture, and to a God of justice who takes sin seriously and sent his son to die a cruel sacrificial death on our behalf.

As evangelical Christians we speak of Jesus paying the price for us … but just a minute, perhaps that doesn’t add up. If the price for my sin is eternal, conscious torment in hell from which there is no escape, then either Jesus hasn’t paid that price, or else he is still in hell and will be there for all eternity. But we know he’s not in hell. God raised him to life again and that is central to our faith.

Sheer logic requires us to examine more carefully what Scripture really says, and that is what Warren Prestidge’s book, Life, Death and Destiny, invites us to do. He is not watering down hell, or denying that God’s justice requires punishment for sin. He is not ignoring Bible verses that speak of God’s wrath, but he is showing that God is not a torturer worse than any human tyrant.

If we really care about those who are lost, let us be sure of the message we convey of the God who so loved the world that he gave his son for us. For those who believe in him there is eternal life – not something which humans have inherently. On resurrection day Christians will receive it, and those who in this life did not believe will soon perish in the second death – a truly eternal punishment.

– Sylvia Coulter
Greenhithe, Auckland