Repent or Perish
Theological Book Reviews
Is the Doctrine of hell still valid
in our day and age? There are many who would do away with this, but
Gerstner silences those who would discard the justice of God in this
little book.
Repent
or Perish
by John Gerstner
Soli Deo Gloria Publications, Morgan, PA: 1996.
218 Pages, Paperback
The doctrine of
eternal punishment has fallen by the wayside in the contemporary church.
It is all but lost. Hell
is a byword; it has become a fantasy for many.
It is led into this false position by men like Edward William
Fudge and John Stott who deny the reality of hell and pass it off as a
place of annihilation instead of a place of eternal torment.
Annihilation of the soul teaches that upon judgment, the soul is
destroyed instead of eternally tormented – thus God is ultimately
merciful in the act towards the sinner.
But in this book Dr. Gerstner refutes the teaching of
annihilationism and cogently teaches the true doctrine of eternal
punishment. To say that God
will annihilate the wicked instead of punish them is to say that the
Word of God is lying to us. To
say the doctrine of annihilationism is true, you must say the Word of
God is false.
In
this book, Gerstner shows how God must punish those who have sinned
against him, and how the doctrine of eternal punishment and judgment,
which took up 13% of Jesus’ teaching, is imperative and must be
believed if we call ourselves Christians who hold to the Word of God.
Chapters include “The Terror of the Lord,” “Christ’s
Teaching about Hell,” “Paul’s Teaching about Hell,” and “How
to and How not to Repent.”
I
especially enjoyed the last chapter (which was short but poignant)
entitled “A Hard Book?” Is
it a hard thing to believe the Bible?
Is it a hard thing to believe in a wrathful God who must punish
sin for all of eternity? We
must accept all the attributes and aspects of God without the danger of
leaning in to heavily and emphasizing too much one particular attribute
which has been the case through the last 150 years.
The church would much rather lean upon the love of God than the
wrath of God, but to do so is to place Theology Proper in disarray.
Though many will bock at the book Gerstner has written, and no
doubt Gerstner s placed in an unpopular light with his contemporaries,
it is equally true that he has been faithful in his exposition in the
Scriptures, and no doubt has been rewarded by God for such a stance.
Some
Quotes:
“Let me remind you
that there is a place worse than hell and better than heaven.
This present world! Because,
dear friends, if you are not born again you are now adding fuel for your
eternal burning. That is
worse than suffering hell now, because it makes hell more hellish when
you go there forever.”
“Jonathan
Edwards, who is not here cited by Fudge but is the greatest defender
that the orthodox doctrine of hell has ever had, insists that God’s
presence in hell is what makes hell hell.
God is present there to curse the wicked, who exist only by His
power, for using that power to sin.
The wicked exist in hell eternally only by the eternal power of
God. How the damned do wish
that Fudge was right. If
only God would withdraw His eternal power so that they could pass into
nothing as Fudge so fondly imagines.”
“But
saying you believe in Christ is not what God requires.
Saying one believes in Christ never saved anyone from hell.
In fact, merely saying one believes in Christ only to escape hell
damns hypocrites yet to a hotter hell.”
“If
you are not afraid of hell, you are almost certainly going there.
You will then never doubt it again.” |
