Hoping vs. Wishing for an Impermanent Hell

As I prepare this week to speak on the doctrine of Hell, I am struggling a bit with my feelings. I think Michael Wittmer summarizes well the tension I have:

Our hopes are only as strong as the reasons we have for holding them. Some hopes are nothing more than a wish—I hope that it doesn’t rain tomorrow or that my team will win the game. But Christian hope, the kind that makes the top cut with faith and love (1 Cor. 13:13), is grounded in the promises of God. Such hope is “an anchor for the soul, firm and secure” (Heb. 6:19), because it rests in what “God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time” (Titus 1:2).

I wish that God would empty hell, that he would save everyone who has ever lived. But I can’t say I hope for that, because I don’t have a promise from God to hang my hope on. Christians may have lots of good wishes for deceased atheists, but we don’t have hope. Not because we are mean or stingy, but because we dare not offer more hope than God promises in Scripture. That would be false hope, the cruelest hope of all.


Michael Wittmer, Christ Alone: An Evangelical Response to Rob Bell's "Love Wins," (Edenridge Press: 2011), Kindle Edition.