Gavin says: "I'm preaching … on soul annihilation & eternal torment in hell … & the … issue of what happens to unsaved 'children … dying before they' are old enough to 'commit actual sin.' The propriety for this question being asked today … & tomorrow … is that on the Calendar of the Anglican 1662 Book of Common Prayer today … is The Innocents' Day when as recorded in St. Matthew 2:16 'Herod … slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, & in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under'." And "we shall consider now some diverse views on punishment in hell found in modern times, both in favour of soul annihilation in hell by Basil Atkinson who died in 1971, John Wenham who died in 1996, John Stott who died in 2011, & Edward Fudge who died in 2017; & also in favour of eternal torment in hell by Anthony Hoekema who died in 1988, James Packer who died in 2020; & John MacArthur who was born in 1939. Now the mutually exclusive argument found from ancient to modern times & with which I disagree is that any Scriptures on soul annihilation in hell are held to be in antithesis to any Scriptures on eternal punishment in hell and vice versa, so that one uses the natural meaning of one of these types of Scriptures to read down the natural meaning of the other of these types of Scripture. By contrast my view is that soul annihilation is at the lower end of punishment in hell, which by deduction is what applies to unsaved 'children … dying before they' are old enough to 'commit actual sin,' Ecclesiastes 6:3 & 5, as they still have original sin … & eternal torment in hell is at the upper end of punishment in hell & persons may also get sentences in hell in between these 2 ends.
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Gavin McGrath (b. 1960) is a graduate of Sydney University, University of Western Sydney, and Moore Theological College (a Reformed Anglican College in Sydney) in New South Wales, Australia. From April 2020, he is a retired school teacher of both New South Wales, Australia, and...
