Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity, and the Things We've Made Up by Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle
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Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity, and the Things We've Made Up
Francis Chan and Preston Sprinkle
Bibliographic Information
Authors: Chan, Francis and Sprinkle, Preston Full Title: Erasing Hell: What God Said About Eternity, and the Things We've Made Up Publisher: David C Cook Year of Publication: 2011 Pages: 208 pp. ISBN: 978-0-7814-0725-0 Series (if applicable): N/A
Author Background
Francis Chan is a well-known evangelical pastor, speaker, and author best known for Crazy Love (2008), which sold over two million copies and established him as a significant voice in contemporary evangelicalism. At the time of Erasing Hell's publication, Chan had recently left Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, California — a megachurch he founded in 1994 — to pursue church planting and global missions work. Chan writes from within the broadly Reformed evangelical tradition, emphasizing God's sovereignty, the authority of Scripture, and radical discipleship. His background is pastoral rather than academic, though his commitment to careful biblical interpretation and his willingness to challenge comfortable American evangelicalism has earned him credibility across denominational lines. Chan's previous work demonstrates a pattern of calling Christians to take Scripture seriously even when its demands are uncomfortable — a pattern that continues in Erasing Hell, where he acknowledges his personal struggle with the doctrine of hell while insisting it must be affirmed.
Preston Sprinkle (Ph.D., University of Aberdeen) is a New Testament scholar who was, at the time of publication, teaching at Eternity Bible College (now Boise Bible College) in California. Sprinkle's academic credentials — including peer-reviewed publications on Paul's theology and Second Temple Judaism — give the book a level of scholarly rigor that Chan's previous works and many popular-level theological books lack. Sprinkle writes from within the same Reformed evangelical tradition as Chan but brings formal training in biblical languages, Second Temple literature, and historical-critical method. His role in the book is primarily exegetical — providing detailed analysis of the biblical texts on hell and judgment — while Chan's voice provides the pastoral and applicational framework. This co-authorship creates an effective division of labor: Sprinkle handles the technical exegesis, Chan handles the pastoral urgency.
Both authors should be situated using the Theological Traditions Reference Guide's Reformed/Calvinist category, though they write with an eye toward broader evangelical consensus rather than strict confessional particularity. Readers should note a potential blind spot: both authors' institutional contexts (Cornerstone Church, Eternity Bible College) and personal networks operate almost entirely within the Reformed evangelical world, which may limit their engagement with Catholic, Orthodox, Wesleyan, and annihilationist perspectives on these questions.
Thesis and Central Argument
Chan and Sprinkle's governing thesis is that the biblical testimony to hell as a place of eternal conscious punishment is clear, consistent, and central to the gospel message, and that recent attempts to soften or eliminate this doctrine — particularly Rob Bell's Love Wins — rest on selective readings of Scripture and fail to take seriously the full witness of Jesus and the apostles on final judgment. The book responds to a specific problem: the widespread perception among younger evangelicals that the traditional doctrine of hell is morally repugnant, biblically uncertain, and pastorally harmful. The authors' proposed contribution is threefold: exegetical (demonstrating through careful analysis of the relevant texts that Scripture clearly teaches eternal conscious torment), theological (showing that the doctrine of hell is consistent with God's love and justice when properly understood), and pastoral (calling Christians to submit to Scripture's teaching even when it troubles us). The argument develops systematically through an examination of biblical terminology, Jesus's teaching, apostolic witness, and theological implications, culminating in a call to trust God's goodness even in the face of doctrines we find difficult.
Overview of Contents
Erasing Hell is structured as seven chapters that build from exegetical foundation to theological and pastoral application. The book's organization is more systematic than Bell's Love Wins, reflecting Sprinkle's academic training and the authors' commitment to careful biblical argument.
Chapter 1 — "Does Everyone Go to Heaven?"
The opening chapter frames the book as a response to Rob Bell's Love Wins, though Bell is not named until later. Chan describes his own struggle with the doctrine of hell, his desire for universalism to be true, and his commitment to follow Scripture wherever it leads even when it contradicts his preferences. This framing establishes the book's tone: honest about the emotional difficulty of the doctrine, but insistent that faithfulness requires affirming it. The chapter positions the question as one of authority — will we submit to what God has revealed, or will we shape doctrine according to what feels right to us? Critics have noted that this framing, while pastorally effective, risks appearing to foreclose genuine inquiry by making disagreement seem like rebellion rather than legitimate theological debate.
Chapter 2 — "What Jesus Actually Said About Hell"
This chapter provides the book's most extensive exegetical work, examining every reference to hell in the Gospels. Sprinkle analyzes the Greek terms — Gehenna, Hades, and tartaroō — and argues that Jesus uses Gehenna consistently to refer not merely to temporal judgment or spiritual alienation but to eschatological punishment. The treatment of Matthew 25:31-46 (the sheep and goats) is particularly detailed: Sprinkle demonstrates that the same Greek adjective (aiōnios) describes both eternal life and eternal punishment, making it exegetically untenable to treat the punishment as temporary while the life is eternal. The chapter also addresses the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31), arguing that while parables should not be pressed for every detail, the consistent portrayal of postmortem suffering across Jesus's teaching establishes a clear pattern. This is the book's strongest chapter exegetically — Sprinkle's training is evident in the careful attention to syntax, lexical range, and Second Temple context.
Chapter 3 — "What Jesus' Followers Said About Hell"
The chapter surveys apostolic teaching on final judgment, examining key texts from Paul (Romans 2:5-11, 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10, Philippians 3:19), Peter (2 Peter 2:4-10, 3:7), Jude (vv. 5-7, 13), and Revelation (14:9-11, 20:10-15, 21:8). Sprinkle argues that the apostles consistently affirm conscious, eternal punishment and that their language intensifies rather than softens Jesus's teaching. The treatment of Revelation 20:10-15 is significant: the lake of fire into which death, Hades, the beast, the false prophet, and all whose names are not in the book of life are thrown is described as eternal torment, and the text provides no hint of eventual restoration. The chapter demonstrates substantial exegetical competence but does not engage texts that universalists cite in their favor (1 Corinthians 15:22-28, Colossians 1:19-20, Philippians 2:9-11) with the same care — an asymmetry that weakens the cumulative case.
Chapter 4 — "What Does This Say About God's Character?"
This chapter addresses the theological objection that eternal conscious torment is incompatible with divine love. Chan and Sprinkle argue that God's love and God's justice are both essential attributes, that justice requires appropriate punishment for sin, and that our intuitions about proportionality are shaped by a shallow understanding of sin's seriousness and God's holiness. The chapter emphasizes God's patience and the gospel's offer of salvation, insisting that those who experience final judgment do so having rejected God's gracious provision. The argument is competent but not as philosophically sophisticated as it needs to be — the book does not engage the extensive philosophical literature on the problem of hell (Marilyn Adams, Thomas Talbott, Jerry Walls) or the theological tradition's most careful articulations of how divine love and eternal punishment cohere.
Chapter 5 — "What If God...?"
Chan takes the lead in this chapter, which is the book's most pastorally vulnerable section. He acknowledges that he wishes universalism were true, that the doctrine of hell troubles him deeply, and that he has wept over it. But he insists that our responsibility is not to make God more palatable but to trust his goodness even when we don't fully understand his ways. The chapter draws on Job, Isaiah 55:8-9 ("my thoughts are not your thoughts"), and Romans 9-11 to argue for epistemic humility before God's sovereign purposes. This is the book's most effective pastoral move — Chan models submission to Scripture while acknowledging the emotional weight of the doctrine — but it risks appearing to foreclose legitimate theological questioning by treating doubt as failure of faith.
Chapter 6 — "What Does This Mean for Us?"
The chapter addresses practical implications: the urgency of evangelism, the seriousness of sin, the costliness of grace, and the call to radical discipleship. Chan argues that taking hell seriously should drive Christians both to evangelistic urgency and to personal holiness, since judgment begins with the household of God (1 Peter 4:17). The treatment is pastorally effective but occasionally trades on fear in ways that replicate the problems Bell identified — the chapter comes close to reducing the gospel to "believe so you don't go to hell" rather than emphasizing the positive invitation to participate in God's restorative work.
Chapter 7 — "What If You're Wrong?"
The book's final chapter addresses readers who remain unconvinced and poses the question: if you're wrong about hell, what are the consequences? The argument is essentially Pascal's Wager applied to eschatology — better to believe in hell and be wrong than to disbelieve and face it. The rhetorical move is effective for some readers but philosophically weak, and it has troubled critics who note that wager-style arguments can be reversed (what if the traditional view is wrong and we've slandered God's character by teaching eternal torment?). The chapter concludes with a call to trust Scripture, submit to God's authority, and live in light of coming judgment.
Theological Evaluation and Critique
Exegetical and Hermeneutical Method
The exegetical method in Erasing Hell is substantially stronger than Bell's Love Wins and represents a genuine attempt to engage the biblical texts on their own terms. Sprinkle's training is evident throughout — the attention to Greek syntax, the careful distinction between Gehenna and Hades, the engagement with Second Temple Jewish literature on Sheol and eschatological punishment, and the proportional treatment of the texts most directly relevant to the question all demonstrate competence. The treatment of Matthew 25:46 is exemplary: Sprinkle correctly identifies the lexical reality that aiōnios modifies both punishment and life, engages alternative interpretations, and explains why the temporal reading fails. The survey of apostolic teaching in Chapter 3 is thorough and demonstrates that the doctrine of eternal punishment is not merely found in a few isolated texts but is woven throughout the New Testament witness.
However, the exegetical method has significant limitations. The book does not engage the texts that universalists cite most frequently with the same care it gives to the judgment texts. First Corinthians 15:22-28 ("as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive... that God may be all in all"), Colossians 1:19-20 ("through him to reconcile to himself all things"), and Philippians 2:9-11 ("every knee should bow... and every tongue confess") are mentioned but not given sustained exegetical attention. The hermeneutical framework — while more carefully articulated than Bell's — still privileges one set of texts over another without fully explaining the criteria for doing so. Sprinkle argues that judgment texts should be read straightforwardly while reconciliation texts should be read with qualifications, but he does not provide a rigorous account of why this is the appropriate interpretive move rather than the reverse.
The book's treatment of Romans 9-11 is particularly underdeveloped given its importance to the debate. Paul's statement in Romans 11:32 that "God has consigned all to disobedience, that he may have mercy on all" is not addressed exegetically, though it is one of the strongest biblical texts for universalist conclusions. The asymmetry in exegetical attention — extensive engagement with texts supporting eternal punishment, minimal engagement with texts suggesting universal restoration — is the book's most significant methodological weakness.
Doctrinal Analysis
Measured against the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (381), Erasing Hell affirms the core of Christian orthodoxy without qualification. The book's affirmation that Christ "will come again to judge the living and the dead" aligns with the ecumenical consensus, and its account of final judgment as involving both salvation and condemnation stands within the mainstream of Christian teaching across two millennia. The Athanasian Creed's statement that "they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire" is affirmed explicitly.
From a Reformed perspective, the Westminster Confession of Faith (1646) teaches that at death "the souls of the righteous... are received into the highest heavens" while "the souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness" (XXXII.1), and that at the final judgment "the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and be punished with everlasting destruction" (XXXIII.2). Erasing Hell aligns with these affirmations without qualification. The book represents mainstream Reformed evangelical teaching on hell and would be assessed as confessionally sound by readers operating within the Westminster tradition. However, the book does not engage the internal Reformed debate about the nature of hell — whether the primary punishment is relational (exclusion from God's presence) or sensory (active torment) — or the Reformed tradition's careful distinctions about the degrees of punishment.
From a Wesleyan-Arminian perspective, the Methodist Articles of Religion (1784) affirm final judgment but do not specify the duration or nature of punishment with Westminster's precision. Wesleyan theology has historically affirmed eternal punishment while emphasizing God's universal love and the real possibility of salvation for all through prevenient grace. Chan and Sprinkle's argument would be broadly acceptable within the Wesleyan tradition, though some Wesleyan readers might find the emphasis on divine sovereignty and the limited engagement with human freedom and divine persuasion to be more Reformed than their tradition would prefer. Roger Olson's critique of universalism suggests that mainstream Arminian theology would find Erasing Hell more congenial than Love Wins, though annihilationist proposals (Edward Fudge, Clark Pinnock) within the Arminian tradition represent a third option that Chan and Sprinkle do not seriously engage.
From a Roman Catholic perspective, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "the teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity" (CCC 1035) and that those who die in mortal sin "descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, 'eternal fire'" (CCC 1035). Erasing Hell aligns with Catholic dogma on the reality and eternity of hell. However, the book does not engage the Catholic tradition's teaching on purgatory, degrees of punishment, or the church's careful agnosticism about who is actually in hell. The Second Vatican Council's document Lumen Gentium acknowledges the possibility of salvation for those who have not heard the gospel but respond to God's grace as they understand it — a nuance that Erasing Hell does not address. Catholic readers operating within the tradition of Hans Urs von Balthasar's Dare We Hope "That All Men Be Saved"? would find Chan and Sprinkle's position orthodox but pastorally less hopeful than the Catholic tradition allows.
From an Eastern Orthodox perspective, the book's emphasis on hell as punishment rather than as the self-chosen experience of God's love by those who have rejected it represents a Western account that many Orthodox theologians would qualify. The Orthodox tradition has emphasized that God's love is the same fire that purifies the saved and tortures the damned, and that hell is relational estrangement from God experienced as torment rather than externally imposed penalty. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware's statement that he is "a convinced universalist who believes in hell" — meaning he hopes all will be saved while affirming the reality of hell — represents an Orthodox position that maintains more eschatological openness than Erasing Hell allows. The book's Western focus on legal categories (punishment, justice, satisfaction) without proportional attention to relational and therapeutic categories (alienation, healing, theosis) would strike many Orthodox readers as theologically incomplete.
Engagement with Secondary Literature
Erasing Hell engages secondary literature more substantively than Love Wins but still falls short of what a thorough treatment would require. The book cites and interacts with several key evangelical works defending eternal conscious torment: Robert Peterson's Hell on Trial (1995), the multi-author volume Hell Under Fire (2004), and D.A. Carson's The Gagging of God (1996). The engagement with these sources is substantive rather than merely citational — Chan and Sprinkle draw on their exegetical arguments and theological frameworks throughout.
However, significant gaps remain. The book does not engage the most sophisticated evangelical case for universalism — Gregory MacDonald's (Robin Parry) The Evangelical Universalist (2006) — which makes many of the same biblical arguments Bell makes but with far greater exegetical rigor and engagement with the theological tradition. The absence of serious interaction with MacDonald means that Erasing Hell responds to Bell's popular-level presentation without addressing the strongest scholarly articulation of the position it is refuting. The book also does not engage the annihilationist tradition substantively — neither Edward Fudge's The Fire That Consumes (1982) nor John Stott's qualified endorsement of annihilationism receives sustained attention, though annihilationism represents a significant third option within evangelical theology that many readers will want to consider.
The philosophical literature on hell — including recent work by Jerry Walls (Hell: The Logic of Damnation, 1992), Thomas Talbott (The Inescapable Love of God, 1999), and Marilyn McCord Adams (Christ and Horrors, 2006) — is entirely absent. This is appropriate for a popular-level work in some respects, but it means that readers seeking engagement with the best philosophical defenses of and challenges to eternal conscious torment will need to look elsewhere. The Patristic tradition receives minimal attention — Augustine's extensive treatment in The City of God is cited but not engaged substantively, and Gregory of Nyssa's speculative universalism is not mentioned despite its importance to the historical debate.
Strengths
The exegetical attention to Jesus's teaching. Chapter 2's careful analysis of every Gospel reference to hell represents the book's most significant contribution and its strongest argument against Bell's selective reading. Sprinkle demonstrates that Jesus speaks about hell more than any other figure in Scripture, that his language is consistently serious and unambiguous, and that attempts to read Gehenna as merely temporal judgment or metaphorical alienation fail when confronted with the cumulative force of the texts. The treatment of Matthew 25:46 — identifying the same adjective aiōnios for both eternal life and eternal punishment — is exegetically decisive and represents the kind of careful lexical work that Bell's book lacks. For readers who take Jesus's teaching seriously as authoritative, this chapter makes a compelling case that the traditional doctrine cannot be dismissed as unbiblical.
The pastoral honesty about the difficulty of the doctrine. Chan's willingness to acknowledge his own struggle with hell — his wish that universalism were true, his tears over the doctrine, his admission that it troubles him — creates space for readers who share those feelings without giving them permission to reject the doctrine. This pastoral vulnerability distinguishes Erasing Hell from some defenses of eternal punishment that treat the doctrine as unproblematic and doubt as unfaithfulness. Chan models how to hold a difficult doctrine with both conviction and humility, which is pastorally valuable for leaders who must teach doctrines they find emotionally challenging.
The clear articulation of exegetical method. Unlike Bell, who never states his hermeneutical commitments explicitly, Chan and Sprinkle are transparent about their approach: Scripture is the final authority, difficult texts cannot be dismissed because they trouble us, and our task is to submit to what God has revealed rather than to shape doctrine according to our preferences. This clarity about method allows readers to assess the argument on its own terms and to identify precisely where they might disagree. The commitment to follow Scripture wherever it leads, even when it contradicts personal preference, represents a disciplined hermeneutical posture that strengthens the book's credibility among readers who share that commitment.
Weaknesses and Limitations
The asymmetrical treatment of universalist texts. The book's most significant exegetical weakness is its failure to engage texts that support universalist conclusions with the same care it gives to judgment texts. First Corinthians 15:22-28, Colossians 1:19-20, Philippians 2:9-11, and Romans 11:32 are mentioned but not given the sustained exegetical attention they require. If these texts genuinely teach universal restoration — as MacDonald and other evangelical universalists have argued with careful exegesis — then the judgment texts must be read in light of them, not vice versa. Chan and Sprinkle assume rather than argue that judgment texts take interpretive priority over reconciliation texts, which makes the argument appear circular to readers who contest that assumption. A more satisfactory treatment would engage the universalist exegesis of these texts in detail and explain why the judgment-priority reading is exegetically superior.
The limited engagement with annihilationism. Annihilationism — the view that the finally impenitent are destroyed rather than eternally tormented — is a live option within evangelical theology, endorsed by scholars as credible as John Stott and defended in detail by Edward Fudge. The position deserves serious engagement since it affirms the finality and seriousness of judgment while avoiding some of the moral difficulties associated with eternal conscious torment. Chan and Sprinkle mention annihilationism but do not engage the exegetical arguments in its favor, particularly the biblical language of destruction, perishing, and death applied to final judgment. The failure to engage this third option means that readers are presented with a binary choice — eternal torment or universalism — when the evangelical tradition actually offers three distinct positions that deserve careful comparative assessment.
The underdeveloped theological account of divine justice and love. Chapter 4's treatment of God's character addresses the objection that eternal punishment contradicts divine love, but the theological argument is less developed than it needs to be. The book asserts that God's justice requires eternal punishment for sin but does not engage the extensive theological and philosophical literature on proportionality, the relationship between temporal sins and eternal consequences, and whether infinite punishment for finite sins is coherent. The appeal to God's holiness and our inability to fully comprehend divine ways is pastorally appropriate but philosophically inadequate. Jerry Walls's work on the logic of hell, Thomas Talbott's arguments about divine love and human freedom, and Marilyn Adams's reflections on horrendous evil all represent serious engagements with these questions that deserve response.
The occasional reliance on fear-based rhetoric. Despite Chan's pastoral vulnerability and his insistence that the gospel is fundamentally about God's love, Chapter 6 occasionally falls into the fear-based gospel presentation that Bell critiqued — emphasizing belief as fire insurance rather than as participation in God's restorative work. The chapter's treatment of evangelistic urgency, while biblically grounded, risks reducing the gospel to threat-avoidance rather than invitation to abundant life. This replicates the problem Bell identified without fully addressing the legitimate pastoral concern that motivates the critique.
Engagement with the Broader Scholarly Conversation
Erasing Hell is positioned explicitly as a response to Rob Bell's Love Wins and enters the broader evangelical conversation about hell that intensified following Bell's book. The most important academic articulation of evangelical universalism — Gregory MacDonald's The Evangelical Universalist — is not engaged, which means the book responds to Bell's popular presentation without addressing the strongest scholarly version of the position. The most rigorous evangelical defense of eternal conscious torment — the multi-author Hell Under Fire (2004) — is cited and drawn upon, situating Chan and Sprinkle within the mainstream Reformed evangelical consensus. The annihilationist position, defended by Edward Fudge and tentatively endorsed by John Stott, represents a significant third option that the book mentions but does not engage substantively.
The book's place in the broader culture wars should be noted: Erasing Hell was widely received by traditional evangelicals as a necessary corrective to Bell's perceived heterodoxy and was seen as defending the boundaries of evangelical orthodoxy. However, its reception was not universally positive even among evangelicals who reject universalism — some critics, including Scot McKnight, noted that the book's limited engagement with annihilationism and its occasional reliance on fear-based rhetoric replicated some of the problems it was written to address.
The broader theological conversation includes significant works that Erasing Hell does not engage: C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce and The Problem of Pain, which offer sophisticated popular-level treatments of hell within the Anglican tradition; Karl Barth's universalist-leaning account of election in Church Dogmatics; and Hans Urs von Balthasar's Dare We Hope "That All Men Be Saved"?, which represents the Catholic tradition's most hopeful eschatological speculation. These omissions are appropriate for a book written primarily for a popular evangelical audience, but they mean that readers from other traditions or those seeking engagement with the full range of Christian thought on these questions will need to supplement significantly.
Conclusion and Recommendation
Erasing Hell is an exegetically competent, pastorally honest, and theologically mainstream defense of the traditional evangelical doctrine of eternal conscious punishment. Its genuine contributions — the careful exegetical treatment of Jesus's teaching on hell, Chan's pastoral vulnerability about the difficulty of the doctrine, and the clear articulation of method — make it a valuable resource for evangelical readers seeking a biblically grounded account of final judgment. However, the book's weaknesses — the asymmetrical treatment of universalist texts, the limited engagement with annihilationism, the underdeveloped theological account of divine justice, and the occasional reliance on fear-based rhetoric — mean that it functions better as a corrective to Bell's selective exegesis than as a comprehensive treatment of Christian teaching on hell. Readers who find the book persuasive should supplement it with more rigorous engagement with alternative positions (MacDonald's The Evangelical Universalist, Fudge's The Fire That Consumes) and with the theological and philosophical literature on divine justice and the problem of hell. As a popular-level defense of traditional teaching, the book succeeds; as a comprehensive theological resource, it requires significant supplementation.
Recommended for: Pastors and ministry leaders responding to questions about hell raised by Love Wins; evangelical readers seeking biblical grounding for the traditional position; those who appreciate pastoral honesty about difficult doctrines; seminary students studying evangelical debates on eschatology when read alongside Bell and other perspectives.
Not recommended for: Readers seeking engagement with the full range of Christian positions on hell across traditions; those looking for sophisticated philosophical treatment of divine justice and the problem of hell; readers from Catholic, Orthodox, or Wesleyan traditions seeking engagement with their distinctive accounts of final judgment; those who need comprehensive treatment of annihilationism as a third option.
Overall Assessment: ☐ Highly Recommended | ☑ Recommended | ☐ Recommended with Reservations | ☐ Not Recommended
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