Matt Chandler on the final state of the lost
Eternal conscious punishment
It is a place of conscious torment. It is a place of fire. It is a place of anguish. And once you're there, there's no getting out. It is eternal.
THE POSITION
Eternal conscious punishment. The Explicit Gospel works through Jesus' words about gnashing of teeth and the undying worm, Revelation 14:11 and the warning of Luke 12:4-5. It then reads the parable of the rich man and Lazarus as a picture of a place that is conscious, fiery and permanent. The same book counts dropping hell "because it's offensive" among the moves of liberal theology. The book was read only as an annihilationist critic quotes it, with page references, and it is co-written with Jared C. Wilson.
12 But the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
29 OTHERS HOLD THIS
ABOUT THIS FIGURE
Lead pastor of teaching at The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, since 2002, and from 2012 president, later chairman, of the Acts 29 church-planting network. He is known for joining Reformed soteriology to openly continuationist practice, a pairing he has described as feeling like a theological orphan. This entry rests on his 2009 interviews and conference messages with Desiring God, a 2011 Tabletalk interview, his 2017 foreword to a book by Sam Storms, a 2024 podcast transcript, press reports of his sermons, The Explicit Gospel (2012, with Jared C. Wilson) as reviewers quote it, and his church's statement of faith, which is used only where a cell says so.
Cite this page
"Matt Chandler on the final state of the lost", Examined Doctrine, July 2026 edition, https://examineddoctrine.com/position/chandler/final-state (archived at https://examineddoctrine.com/editions/2026-07/position/chandler/final-state).