What the Hell is Hell?
What is hell? How does it relate to the justice and love of God? What about good atheists who are kind to other people? Are they going to hell too? How narrow-minded is that? How can God be full of love and yet send people to hell at the same time? These are difficult and serious questions that prevent people from coming to faith. How can we give a reason for our hope to people who ask such questions? Read on... Love Wins!Audio Podcast download herehttp://puchong.cdpc.org.my/2011/06/05/june-5-what-the-hell-is-hell-matthew-25-david-chong/
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What the hell is Hell? Matthew 25:31-46 31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
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“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Do you remember the first time someone preached the gospel to you? Was it a good or bad experience? My first experience with a classmate who tried to share the good news with me was not very pleasant. It was a rather forceful presentation with heavy emphasis on eternal punishment, hell fire and brimstone. I can’t recall the exact words but the gist of it was something like: “Hey, do you know where you go after you die? Let me tell you. If you don’t believe in Jesus, you will suffer forever, like barbecue roasting in hell. You will gnash your teeth and scary worms will crawl all over you”. You catch the drift… Have you come across zealous evangelists like that?
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My friend’s evangelistic approach actually worked quite well for other classmates. There was a mini revival in school! Certainly God, in his sovereignty, can use even less-thanperfect methods like this to work out his good purpose. But the more he threatened me with the lake of fire for not believing in Jesus, the more resistant and determined I was to argue with him. Now that I look back on it, as a believer, I can understand that he actually means well. If there is such a thing as hell, then it would be loving and compassionate of him to warn me about it even if I don’t like to hear it. It’s like if you are asleep in a house that’s on fire, you would wish that the people who saw it will wake you up and tell you to escape quickly from danger. If hell exists, it would be cruel of him to keep quiet and let me die just because he is afraid of offending me. Yes, I can see that now… But…Even though he probably means well, some classmates and I still think that his way of sharing the good news probably has plenty of room for improvement. Not sure about you but I felt like he’s trying to manipulate people with scare tactics. There was a hint of superiority and pride. Yes, it’s true that Jesus preached about hell and judgment, but He also cried and wept for sinners to turn away from sin and be rescued. He takes no delight in the death of the wicked. Where is the sense of sadness? Where is the sense that: “Unless I am saved by the grace of God, I will end up in hell too? I am not any better than you are. All of us deserve hell unless Christ took our punishment on the cross, for us.” You see… Unless people sense that Christ-like humility and earnest compassion in us, they may easily be put off by such graceless attitude and become hardened and reject the gospel because it seems to portray a God who is cruel, random and narrow, happy to burn people forever in hell if they happen to disagree with Him. And it raises a host of questions: What about good atheists who are kind to other people? Are they going to hell too? How narrow-minded is that? How can God be full of love and yet send people to hell at the same time? These are difficult and serious questions that prevent people from coming to faith. How can we give a reason for our hope to people who ask such questions? On the other extreme, for many people today, if they think about hell at all, they think of it as a joke or a cartoon strip. Probably you have heard of the one about: “How can there be gnashing of teeth in hell if some people die without any tooth left? Punch-line: False teeth will be provided.” And people go ‘hahaha’… With common jokes like that going around, it’s no wonder that the reality of hell is so often ignored, laughed at, ridiculed and trivialized. We hear people saying, “Oh I’d rather go to hell because all my friends are there and we are gonna party and play mahjong together. It’d be loads of fun.” And if we are really honest, very often, even Christians are often embarrassed to talk about hell at all for fear of making people uncomfortable. “Let’s focus on the positive side of things instead and forget about all this hellish stuff”. As a result, the biblical teaching about hell is simply never discussed or preached from the pulpit. Most church
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goers do not even miss it all that much. Do you ever wonder, “Gee… I just can’t wait. When is pastor going to preach on hell again?” Over time, we just neglect and dismiss this doctrine altogether. So how do we affirm a biblical teaching of hell in a culture where tolerance is supreme and divine judgment is not taken seriously? We probably cannot address everything in a couple of minutes. There is great mystery about the afterlife and what we cannot speak; we must pass over in silence. But we can look at what God has revealed in His word and say something about THREE questions that may help us get a more balanced perspective on hell, help us to comfort the spiritually fearful and at the same time, terrify the spiritually complacent. First Question: What does the Bible say about Hell? Second Question: How does Hell display the justice of God? Third Question: How does Hell magnify the love of God? 1: What does the Bible say about hell? Jesus was the most loving person. He is a friend of sinners. He heals the lepers, the untouchables. He accepts the outcasts and outsiders. He forgives prostitutes and eats with tax collectors. Yet He also warned people of the dangers of hell more than anyone else. Contrary to the ‘meek and mild’ Jesus of popular imagination, the historical Jesus preached quite a bit on judgment, eternal fire and divine wrath. Top on the list of people to be judged are (surprise, surprise) the religious leaders of his day. Remember the seven woes or disasters he threw at the selfrighteous, hypocritical guys in Luke chapter 11? He says: “Woe to you, Pharisees, because you give a tenth of all your herbs but you overlook justice and the love of God… You load people up with burdens they can’t carry but you yourselves will not lift a finger to help! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” Not only religious people, Jesus also directed his stern warnings at the towns that saw his miracles but rejected his call to love (Luke 10): “Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the powerful works that have happened in you had taken place in Tyre and Sidon long ago, they would have repented… and you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the heavens? No, you will go down to hell”. Very powerful and vivid images were used by Jesus to describe hell as a place of • • • “darkness” – Matthew 8:12, 22:13, 25:30, Jude 13, 2 Peter 2:17 “where the fire never goes out, their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” – Mark 9:43, 48 “weeping and gnashing of teeth” – Matthew 8:12, 13:42, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30
Other New Testament writers described hell as a • “fiery lake of burning sulfur” – Revelations 19:20, 21:8, 20:10, 14-15
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Where the wicked will be “tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for them” Revelation 14:10-11 “punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power” – 2 Thessalonians 1:9
In other words, hell is definitely not a nice place to be in, let alone for a party. Avoid it at all costs. Reading these biblical passages together, it is virtually impossible to avoid seeing hell as eternal and everlasting. It is very hard to conclude from these passages that everyone will ultimately be saved or just snuffed out of existence after spending some time in hell. It’s not that I don’t find these alternative views of hell appealing rationally and emotionally, but based on the biblical evidence, exegetically, they receive little or no support. Hell is not just a state of mind. It is not the turf where Satan is in control. From Hollywood movies, people have a popular misconception of hell as Satan’s kingdom and heaven as God’s kingdom. No, hell is the place ruled by God where all who willfully continue in sin and refuse to love will be judged, banished and punished. It is a real and terrible place. No sacrifice is too great to avoid it. In Matthew 10:28 Jesus says, "Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Although hell is real, virtually all Bible scholars today see the pictures of ‘eternal fire’ and ‘darkness’ as vivid metaphors that stress what a horrible place it is. When there is fire, you get light. How can there be darkness at the same time? These graphic descriptions seem to contradict each other if taken literally. So it is better to understand the contrasting imagery of fire and darkness, lake of fire and bottomless pit as powerful metaphors that describe what happens when we are shut out from God’s presence. “Depart from me” is the ultimate condemnation. But before we say: “Phew! Boy, am I glad that’s just a metaphor. Maybe Hell is not so bad after all”, please remember that the metaphors probably represent a spiritual reality far worse than anything that words can describe. “Huh? You mean – it’s even worse? So what do the symbols of fire and darkness represent?” Tim Keller put it this way: “Darkness refers to the isolation and fire to the disintegration of being separated from God. Away from the favor and face of God, we literally, horrifically and endlessly fall apart.” If you recall, the Bible storyline starts by telling us that God created us in His own likeness that we may love and be loved by Him. We are designed for community, for relationship with God and with each other. He is the fountain of all that is good, beautiful and true and our souls can only be satisfied in Him and nothing else. We are made to enjoy and glorify that which is most glorious, most valuable and most enjoyable and satisfying – that is, in God himself.
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That’s why He created us. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should embrace His generous, expansive, infinite and never-stopping love. He desires and yearns for all to come and live the abundant life that is only found in Him. But sin separates us from God’s presence, who is the source of joy, love, peace, wisdom and all that is good. What is sin? The essence of sin is: Loving anything more than God. It is making a good thing your ultimate thing. It is taking a good thing like self, family, wealth, recognition, a talent, a dream girl and making it the source of your highest joy, your ultimate security and most precious. When we do so, that thing becomes our idol… something we worship, something that enslaves us. We have rejected and replaced what is most beautiful and true and good with something of a lesser good, a lesser beauty and a lesser truth. You see, people do not go to hell because they failed a theological exam. Like a quiz at the gate of heaven where the angel says to you, “To come in here you must answer this multiple choice question correctly. What is the real name of God? A) Allah B) Jesus C) Buddha D) Elvis Presley. “That’s a tough one. OK I choose D, no, no B. No, I think it’s D…” “Adakah itu jawaban anda muktamad? Is that your final answer? Beep! Wrong. Off to hell you go!” (It doesn’t work like that) No, Hell is punishment for a life of sin. At the heart of sin is not failing a theological exam but the failure to love others (the hungry, sick, poor) and failure to love God. It is basically saying: “God, I can run my own life without you… I declare my independence from you.” So what is God going to do? C.S. Lewis wrote: “In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary.” You see, on the cross, God has already made the way for sins to be forgiven at great cost… Jesus sacrificed His own life so that we could have new life. What more is God supposed to do? “To forgive them? They don’t want to be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.” Hell is being cast away from God’s presence forever. Yes, God’s justice isnot passive, but active. He’s really punishing them by giving them over to the logical consequences of their choice. He’s leaving them alone, isolated from His face forever. Without that selfchoice, it wouldn’t be hell. And that choice starts to take shape right now here on earth. The decisions we make every day little by little make up our character, shape our souls and solidify the kind of person we are. If I’m a very bad-tempered and bitter person, and I refuse to take steps to
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change that but let that resentment continue growing and burning for years and years, it’s going to harden and eternalize my character and make it even more difficult for me to change. The process of sin, pride and denial that begins in our soul now can go on forever and ever. Where are you heading spiritually today? What is the shape of your soul? If we refuse to center our lives on God and we don’t want anything to do with Him and continue choosing to live for something else apart from God, then He will give us exactly what we wanted to be – a self centered soul going on for a billion years separated from God’s presence. That’s darkness and isolation. That’s eternal fire and disintegration. That’s hell. Fine, we see what hell is like. But how does Hell display the justice of God? Many people argue that: “A good and loving God should be more tolerant and not punish sinners in hell. Judgment, wrath, vengeance and anger are not worthy of God”. But think about our own relationships with friends or family members. Do we find love and anger incompatible? Or do they often operate together at the same time? Actually there seems to be a close relationship that: The more we love someone, the more we may get angry when they destroy their own lives with addiction or betray our trust. If a wife finds out that she has been cheated by her husband, would she not be angry and confronts him? What if she sounds indifferent: “Oh, you had an affair? That’s so not cool. Just try not to do it again, ok”? You’d be horrified – does she love him or not? Someone once wrote: “Anger is not the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.” Similarly, the wrath of God is His holy anger against all evils that hurt us (His people). There is a tender fierceness in God against everything that offends His holy character. God’s love is a holy kind of love, and His righteous anger is a loving kind of anger. He is good but He is not tame. His anger is set against all that is destroying the people He loves. It flows from his intense love for his creation because sin is destructive and cannot be tolerated. I suspect the bottom line is: we have great trouble understanding the justice of God in punishing sinners in hell because we just don’t take sin very seriously anymore. We live in an age where sin is seen as something naughty, fun, maybe even cool… It’s just something that you decide for yourself like ice cream flavors. There is no right or wrong answer. So it’s no wonder that people find it hard to understand all the fuss about an eternal hell! “Surely all good and decent people can go to heaven. I try hard to be a better person so I don’t think I deserve hell like a Hitler or Osama bin Laden”. It sounds open-minded to say that any good person can find God (Christians or atheists). But this position is also exclusive and narrow: “Good people will go to heaven and bad people will not.” It excludes all people who have done wrong and indecent things.
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The problem is: there is no hope for bad people. But if we are really honest, we know deep down that none of us has lived up to our own standards of right and wrong. In fact a lot of intelligent, decent and sincere people in Nazi Germany supported Hitler in his oppression of the Jews, disabled and gypsies. Is it not possible that we are also capable of similar evils given the same environment and context? Not only is this perspective narrow and exclusive, its understanding of sin is too superficial. Of course, hurting and killing people like Hitler is wrong and cruel. Comparing our moral performance with people like him may make us look relatively good. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us deserve to go to heaven. Why not? As we have seen earlier, the root of sin is much more radical than that: Sin is not merely doing bad things like hurting other people. In the parable of Jesus that we read just now: When we do not care for the hungry, the outsider, the poor and the sick, you do not care for God. He says: “Whatever you did not do to one of these, you did not do for me”. When we tell a lie, hurt someone or consume greedily, the most offended party is God. Fundamentally sin is making good things into ‘God’ things. It is loving anything more than God, essentially being our own ‘god’ (self centeredness); trusting in our own wisdom, power and goodness. Do you remember the character Gollum/Smeagol in the movie Lord of the rings? He’s obsessed with a beautiful, innocent and preciousssss ring. The ring is not obviously evil. People start off wanting it to do some good and noble things like Boromir who wanted the ring’s power to defend his homeland. That’s a noble purpose but the ring amplifies that desire so much so that he desires it more than everything else and doesn’t care how he gets it or who gets hurt along the way. When that happens, it becomes an idol that controls, corrupts and destroys them. Eventually Gollum become corrupted and twisted, being enslaved by it. That’s what happens at the heart of sin. Wars, oppression and other obvious evils are just symptoms of that subtle but dangerous root of idolatry in our hearts. So the Christian faith does not teach that people go to heaven by just following a set of moral rules. Even if you try to be good and decent, you may be doing it as a way to earn your salvation and save yourself from hell. It’s still motivated by Self interest. The ultimate goal is still: Me, myself and I. All of us are guilty of this, therefore all have sinned against God and deserve punishment until we see our spiritual condition and seek forgiveness and change through Jesus. Our eternal destiny does not depend on being good, but on how we respond to the grace of God. It is inclusive and open to all: “No matter who you are or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been to the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced through Jesus”. If we are not willing to admit our need for forgiveness… if we rather choose to continue in the self-centeredness of our hearts, then God will say to us, “Your will be done. I will let you continue in your chosen direction forever”. That’s why C.S. Lewis says: Hell is
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the greatest monument to human freedom. Nobody goes to hell except people who willfully chose it. Isn’t that justice with irony? They get what they always wanted (separation from God) when God actively punished them by excluding them from His presence. But if we say to God, “Lord, I don’t want to run my life centered on myself. Your will be done. Your love is better than life. You are my treasure. A day in your presence is better than a thousand elsewhere,” then living with God forever is heaven. Again, C.S. Lewis here: “There are only two kinds of people – those who say to God, ‘thy will be done’ to God or those to whom God in the end says, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice it wouldn’t be Hell.” Ok fine. Granted that everybody deserves to be judged but how can a lifetime of sin (maximum: 100 years) deserve an eternity in hell? You sin for only 50 years but get punished forever. Isn’t that punishment disproportionate and unjust? Well, there is a hidden but shaky assumption behind this question: That the seriousness of a crime depends on the length of time taken to commit it. The longer it takes, the more serious it is. But a thief may take half a day to break into a house but it may just take 10 minutes to murder someone. Surely the act of murder is much more serious than stealing. So the seriousness of a crime does not depend on the length of time taken to commit it, but to the dignity of the person sinned against. Let’s do a mental experiment. Imagine a guy kicking a harmless dog or slapping a friend. That’s wrong, but if he kicks or slaps his own mother, that same act is exceedingly more sinful, deserving a heavier penalty. Although the outward action may be the same, the moral difference lies in the worth and dignity of his parent. Since he owes honor and respect to his mother much more than the dog, the crime of harming someone so worthy of his love is even more heinous and horrible. Now extrapolate that and consider the Lord who has loved us, gave us His life and supremely worthy of our utmost worship and honor. Here is someone to whom we owe infinite honor, respect and love. Therefore, the act of sinning against Someone of such supreme worth is infinitely heinous and deserves a proportionately infinite punishment. On top of that, there is no reason to think that those lost in hell will ever change and repent of their sins. Those who finally reject God will continue in denial, self absorption and resentment even in the midst of suffering or regret. If so, then eternal punishment in hell would be fair and proportionate with the seriousness of their ongoing crime. You see, at the end of the day, it is easy to debate the justice of God in judging evil while sitting at Starbucks, sipping coffee and enjoying the comforts of modern life. But for people who live under oppression, violence and injustice, the judgment and vengeance of
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God against all evil comes like a fresh drink in the desert. That God will have a day of reckoning for the wicked is an inspiration and a comfort for the oppressed. Now that we have seen what hell is and how it manifests the justice of God… but what about the love of God? How does Hell reveal to us the love of God? A college friend once shared with me that his motivation to be a Christian was mainly because he is scared of the prospect of eternal torture in hell. That’s it. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” he asked me. What do you think? Many people were shaken after hearing a strong fire and brimstone sermon and became Christians out of fear to escape hell. Well, on one hand, if hell is real, then being afraid of it sounds like a reasonable response. If hell is half as bad as it sounds, then we ought to be afraid. Be very afraid. But on the other hand, it seems a bit strange if a person becomes a Christian solely out of fear. Imagine if Grace, my wife, chooses to marry me out of fear that if she doesn’t, a lot of unhappiness and misery would befall her. Maybe that is probably true but if that’s all that motivate her then I’d be greatly disappointed. It seems to miss the whole point of marriage, doesn’t it? What about the bits about loving the person and so on? In the same way, to say you worship and trust in God mainly because you are scared of eternal punishment sounds something like that. You may fear hell but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are captivated by the love of God. People may want to be Christians in order to escape from hell, but they are not necessarily transformed and captured by love for God. Love, not fear, ought to be the main driving force for trusting in Christ as Lord and Savior. So how can the biblical teaching of hell show us just how amazing is God’s love for us? We will only catch a glimpse of how high and wide and deep is the love of Christ when we see how He went through hell for us on the cross. Many people today say: “A God who sends people to hell is cruel. He should simply forgive them. That’s his job – to forgive. Isn’t that kind of God more loving and kind?” But unless you believe in hell, you will never know how much Jesus loves you and sacrificed for you. On the cross He cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). Tim Keller wrote this in an article called “Preaching hell in a tolerant age: Brimstone for the broad-minded” and I quote at length: “To lose a friend’s love hurts but to lose the love of a spouse hurts more. The deeper the relationship, the more devastating is our loss. On the cross, when Jesus lost the eternal love of the Father and experienced the isolation and disintegration we deserve in hell. Only knowing such personal love will liberate us to love instead of fear.” If you say God simply forgives everyone and doesn’t need to punish anyone, a question still remains: "What did it cost this kind of God to love us and embrace us? What did he
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endure in order to receive us? When did this God agonize, cry out? Where were his nails and thorns?" The only answer is: "I don't think that is necessary." How ironic. In our effort to make God more loving, we have made God less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all. The worship of a God like this will be impersonal, cognitive, ethical. There will be no joyful self-abandonment, no humble boldness, no constant sense of wonder. We would not sing to such a being, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." The irony is… Only when you see Jesus bearing our isolation and pain and sorrows and sins on the cross, enduring separation from communion with the Father, will you ever know that amazing love that captures and transforms your heart. Only then will you be freed to love God for who He is and not for self-interest. Only then will you be freed to care others in society for God’s sake. When we see the hungry and feed them, when we see a stranger in need and welcome him, or visit the sick; we do it for the King. Wait a minute… but don’t you create horrible social divisions if you think everyone else is going to hell while only people who share your beliefs go to heaven? That’s what you see in Malaysian when race and religion get mixed up, right? “You believe others are going to hell. Isn’t that gonna make you look down on others and think you are superior to them?” Actually the opposite is true. If we are saved by moral performance then it is possible to look down on others. But not if you are saved by sheer grace of God, you are not any better than others, so how can you possibly be arrogant and look down on others? Miroslav Volf is a Croatian Christian who knew violence in the conflicts of former Yugoslavia. He chose to stay back with his people when he could have chosen a comfortable life as a theology professor. He wrote that peace and non-violence requires belief in divine judgment in an important book called Exclusion and Embrace. He says: “If God were not angry at injustice and did not make a final end to violence, He would not be worthy of worship. The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from God… the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance…” Only if I am sure God will right all wrongs will I have the power to refrain from violent revenge in the face of horrible injustice. We don’t take justice into our own hands because the ultimate Punisher is God. Our motives are mixed at best. But He sees all and His eyes are pure. Instead of promoting violence, belief in hell actually empowers us to forgive without condoning sin, to leave room for God to repay. We can be agents of peace and reconciliation in society by trusting in God’s promise to deliver final justice.
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To wrap things up, here is the final analysis: the biblical teaching of a final judgment is crucial for Christian living because it enables us to forgive others freely and provides a moral restraint against sin. It magnifies the justice of God in punishing evil and putting the world to right. Only against the grim and dark backdrop of divine anger can we see the glorious splendor of the Father’s love for us who would send His only Son to experience hell on our behalf. Because of that, it provides a powerful motive for evangelism and compassion. The only appropriate response after understanding the horrible nature of hell is nothing less than a renewed love for the many people in our city who do not yet know the Lord. No one comes to God except through Jesus for there is salvation in no other name. And for those who have not had the chance to hear the gospel, God can bypass the normal channels and work through dreams, visions and a hundred other creative and extraordinary means. We hear many stories like that of Muslims who seek Allah and found Nabi Isa through dreams and so on. A person who is searching and willing to love God as Cornelius did in the book of Acts can receive a direct revelation that leads to his salvation. So we don’t need to worry about whether anyone unjustly ends up in hell through no fault of their own. What should concern us is that God has showered his grace in our lives and gave us the privilege to be witnesses of his good news to those around us who could have the chance to respond to the gospel. What are we doing about that? Let me just mention briefly that some brothers and sisters in the church felt a burden to care for the needy and give food to hungry around us, others felt led by the Spirit to help us care for our souls through spiritual disciplines (and let the gospel free us from the idolatry of sex, money and power)… It’s exciting stuff! Please be encouraged to be part of what God is doing in our midst in reaching out. “Whatever you do for one of these you do it for Jesus”. Personally what I really hope to do is to be able to have conversational evangelism with college students or working adults who are curious, have serious questions or objections about the Christian faith. If you are in touch with people like that and felt led to reach out to them, I’d really love to talk to you and see what we can do together for the gospel. That’s probably the best response after a horrible sermon like this… a renewed love for the many people in our city who do not yet know the Lord. Let us pray and commit what’s in our heart to Him.
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“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Do you remember the first time someone preached the gospel to you? Was it a good or bad experience? My first experience with a classmate who tried to share the good news with me was not very pleasant. It was a rather forceful presentation with heavy emphasis on eternal punishment, hell fire and brimstone. I can’t recall the exact words but the gist of it was something like: “Hey, do you know where you go after you die? Let me tell you. If you don’t believe in Jesus, you will suffer forever, like barbecue roasting in hell. You will gnash your teeth and scary worms will crawl all over you”. You catch the drift… Have you come across zealous evangelists like that?
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My friend’s evangelistic approach actually worked quite well for other classmates. There was a mini revival in school! Certainly God, in his sovereignty, can use even less-thanperfect methods like this to work out his good purpose. But the more he threatened me with the lake of fire for not believing in Jesus, the more resistant and determined I was to argue with him. Now that I look back on it, as a believer, I can understand that he actually means well. If there is such a thing as hell, then it would be loving and compassionate of him to warn me about it even if I don’t like to hear it. It’s like if you are asleep in a house that’s on fire, you would wish that the people who saw it will wake you up and tell you to escape quickly from danger. If hell exists, it would be cruel of him to keep quiet and let me die just because he is afraid of offending me. Yes, I can see that now… But…Even though he probably means well, some classmates and I still think that his way of sharing the good news probably has plenty of room for improvement. Not sure about you but I felt like he’s trying to manipulate people with scare tactics. There was a hint of superiority and pride. Yes, it’s true that Jesus preached about hell and judgment, but He also cried and wept for sinners to turn away from sin and be rescued. He takes no delight in the death of the wicked. Where is the sense of sadness? Where is the sense that: “Unless I am saved by the grace of God, I will end up in hell too? I am not any better than you are. All of us deserve hell unless Christ took our punishment on the cross, for us.” You see… Unless people sense that Christ-like humility and earnest compassion in us, they may easily be put off by such graceless attitude and become hardened and reject the gospel because it seems to portray a God who is cruel, random and narrow, happy to burn people forever in hell if they happen to disagree with Him. And it raises a host of questions: What about good atheists who are kind to other people? Are they going to hell too? How narrow-minded is that? How can God be full of love and yet send people to hell at the same time? These are difficult and serious questions that prevent people from coming to faith. How can we give a reason for our hope to people who ask such questions? On the other extreme, for many people today, if they think about hell at all, they think of it as a joke or a cartoon strip. Probably you have heard of the one about: “How can there be gnashing of teeth in hell if some people die without any tooth left? Punch-line: False teeth will be provided.” And people go ‘hahaha’… With common jokes like that going around, it’s no wonder that the reality of hell is so often ignored, laughed at, ridiculed and trivialized. We hear people saying, “Oh I’d rather go to hell because all my friends are there and we are gonna party and play mahjong together. It’d be loads of fun.” And if we are really honest, very often, even Christians are often embarrassed to talk about hell at all for fear of making people uncomfortable. “Let’s focus on the positive side of things instead and forget about all this hellish stuff”. As a result, the biblical teaching about hell is simply never discussed or preached from the pulpit. Most church
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goers do not even miss it all that much. Do you ever wonder, “Gee… I just can’t wait. When is pastor going to preach on hell again?” Over time, we just neglect and dismiss this doctrine altogether. So how do we affirm a biblical teaching of hell in a culture where tolerance is supreme and divine judgment is not taken seriously? We probably cannot address everything in a couple of minutes. There is great mystery about the afterlife and what we cannot speak; we must pass over in silence. But we can look at what God has revealed in His word and say something about THREE questions that may help us get a more balanced perspective on hell, help us to comfort the spiritually fearful and at the same time, terrify the spiritually complacent. First Question: What does the Bible say about Hell? Second Question: How does Hell display the justice of God? Third Question: How does Hell magnify the love of God? 1: What does the Bible say about hell? Jesus was the most loving person. He is a friend of sinners. He heals the lepers, the untouchables. He accepts the outcasts and outsiders. He forgives prostitutes and eats with tax collectors. Yet He also warned people of the dangers of hell more than anyone else. Contrary to the ‘meek and mild’ Jesus of popular imagination, the historical Jesus preached quite a bit on judgment, eternal fire and divine wrath. Top on the list of people to be judged are (surprise, surprise) the religious leaders of his day. Remember the seven woes or disasters he threw at the selfrighteous, hypocritical guys in Luke chapter 11? He says: “Woe to you, Pharisees, because you give a tenth of all your herbs but you overlook justice and the love of God… You load people up with burdens they can’t carry but you yourselves will not lift a finger to help! How can you escape the condemnation of hell?” Not only religious people, Jesus also directed his stern warnings at the towns that saw his miracles but rejected his call to love (Luke 10): “Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the powerful works that have happened in you had taken place in Tyre and Sidon long ago, they would have repented… and you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the heavens? No, you will go down to hell”. Very powerful and vivid images were used by Jesus to describe hell as a place of • • • “darkness” – Matthew 8:12, 22:13, 25:30, Jude 13, 2 Peter 2:17 “where the fire never goes out, their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched” – Mark 9:43, 48 “weeping and gnashing of teeth” – Matthew 8:12, 13:42, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30
Other New Testament writers described hell as a • “fiery lake of burning sulfur” – Revelations 19:20, 21:8, 20:10, 14-15
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• •
Where the wicked will be “tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever. There will be no rest day or night for them” Revelation 14:10-11 “punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power” – 2 Thessalonians 1:9
In other words, hell is definitely not a nice place to be in, let alone for a party. Avoid it at all costs. Reading these biblical passages together, it is virtually impossible to avoid seeing hell as eternal and everlasting. It is very hard to conclude from these passages that everyone will ultimately be saved or just snuffed out of existence after spending some time in hell. It’s not that I don’t find these alternative views of hell appealing rationally and emotionally, but based on the biblical evidence, exegetically, they receive little or no support. Hell is not just a state of mind. It is not the turf where Satan is in control. From Hollywood movies, people have a popular misconception of hell as Satan’s kingdom and heaven as God’s kingdom. No, hell is the place ruled by God where all who willfully continue in sin and refuse to love will be judged, banished and punished. It is a real and terrible place. No sacrifice is too great to avoid it. In Matthew 10:28 Jesus says, "Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell." Although hell is real, virtually all Bible scholars today see the pictures of ‘eternal fire’ and ‘darkness’ as vivid metaphors that stress what a horrible place it is. When there is fire, you get light. How can there be darkness at the same time? These graphic descriptions seem to contradict each other if taken literally. So it is better to understand the contrasting imagery of fire and darkness, lake of fire and bottomless pit as powerful metaphors that describe what happens when we are shut out from God’s presence. “Depart from me” is the ultimate condemnation. But before we say: “Phew! Boy, am I glad that’s just a metaphor. Maybe Hell is not so bad after all”, please remember that the metaphors probably represent a spiritual reality far worse than anything that words can describe. “Huh? You mean – it’s even worse? So what do the symbols of fire and darkness represent?” Tim Keller put it this way: “Darkness refers to the isolation and fire to the disintegration of being separated from God. Away from the favor and face of God, we literally, horrifically and endlessly fall apart.” If you recall, the Bible storyline starts by telling us that God created us in His own likeness that we may love and be loved by Him. We are designed for community, for relationship with God and with each other. He is the fountain of all that is good, beautiful and true and our souls can only be satisfied in Him and nothing else. We are made to enjoy and glorify that which is most glorious, most valuable and most enjoyable and satisfying – that is, in God himself.
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That’s why He created us. God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should embrace His generous, expansive, infinite and never-stopping love. He desires and yearns for all to come and live the abundant life that is only found in Him. But sin separates us from God’s presence, who is the source of joy, love, peace, wisdom and all that is good. What is sin? The essence of sin is: Loving anything more than God. It is making a good thing your ultimate thing. It is taking a good thing like self, family, wealth, recognition, a talent, a dream girl and making it the source of your highest joy, your ultimate security and most precious. When we do so, that thing becomes our idol… something we worship, something that enslaves us. We have rejected and replaced what is most beautiful and true and good with something of a lesser good, a lesser beauty and a lesser truth. You see, people do not go to hell because they failed a theological exam. Like a quiz at the gate of heaven where the angel says to you, “To come in here you must answer this multiple choice question correctly. What is the real name of God? A) Allah B) Jesus C) Buddha D) Elvis Presley. “That’s a tough one. OK I choose D, no, no B. No, I think it’s D…” “Adakah itu jawaban anda muktamad? Is that your final answer? Beep! Wrong. Off to hell you go!” (It doesn’t work like that) No, Hell is punishment for a life of sin. At the heart of sin is not failing a theological exam but the failure to love others (the hungry, sick, poor) and failure to love God. It is basically saying: “God, I can run my own life without you… I declare my independence from you.” So what is God going to do? C.S. Lewis wrote: “In the long run the answer to all those who object to the doctrine of hell, is itself a question: What are you asking God to do? To wipe out their past sins and, at all costs, to give them a fresh start, smoothing every difficulty and offering every miraculous help? But He has done so, on Calvary.” You see, on the cross, God has already made the way for sins to be forgiven at great cost… Jesus sacrificed His own life so that we could have new life. What more is God supposed to do? “To forgive them? They don’t want to be forgiven. To leave them alone? Alas, I am afraid that is what He does.” Hell is being cast away from God’s presence forever. Yes, God’s justice isnot passive, but active. He’s really punishing them by giving them over to the logical consequences of their choice. He’s leaving them alone, isolated from His face forever. Without that selfchoice, it wouldn’t be hell. And that choice starts to take shape right now here on earth. The decisions we make every day little by little make up our character, shape our souls and solidify the kind of person we are. If I’m a very bad-tempered and bitter person, and I refuse to take steps to
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change that but let that resentment continue growing and burning for years and years, it’s going to harden and eternalize my character and make it even more difficult for me to change. The process of sin, pride and denial that begins in our soul now can go on forever and ever. Where are you heading spiritually today? What is the shape of your soul? If we refuse to center our lives on God and we don’t want anything to do with Him and continue choosing to live for something else apart from God, then He will give us exactly what we wanted to be – a self centered soul going on for a billion years separated from God’s presence. That’s darkness and isolation. That’s eternal fire and disintegration. That’s hell. Fine, we see what hell is like. But how does Hell display the justice of God? Many people argue that: “A good and loving God should be more tolerant and not punish sinners in hell. Judgment, wrath, vengeance and anger are not worthy of God”. But think about our own relationships with friends or family members. Do we find love and anger incompatible? Or do they often operate together at the same time? Actually there seems to be a close relationship that: The more we love someone, the more we may get angry when they destroy their own lives with addiction or betray our trust. If a wife finds out that she has been cheated by her husband, would she not be angry and confronts him? What if she sounds indifferent: “Oh, you had an affair? That’s so not cool. Just try not to do it again, ok”? You’d be horrified – does she love him or not? Someone once wrote: “Anger is not the opposite of love. Hate is, and the final form of hate is indifference.” Similarly, the wrath of God is His holy anger against all evils that hurt us (His people). There is a tender fierceness in God against everything that offends His holy character. God’s love is a holy kind of love, and His righteous anger is a loving kind of anger. He is good but He is not tame. His anger is set against all that is destroying the people He loves. It flows from his intense love for his creation because sin is destructive and cannot be tolerated. I suspect the bottom line is: we have great trouble understanding the justice of God in punishing sinners in hell because we just don’t take sin very seriously anymore. We live in an age where sin is seen as something naughty, fun, maybe even cool… It’s just something that you decide for yourself like ice cream flavors. There is no right or wrong answer. So it’s no wonder that people find it hard to understand all the fuss about an eternal hell! “Surely all good and decent people can go to heaven. I try hard to be a better person so I don’t think I deserve hell like a Hitler or Osama bin Laden”. It sounds open-minded to say that any good person can find God (Christians or atheists). But this position is also exclusive and narrow: “Good people will go to heaven and bad people will not.” It excludes all people who have done wrong and indecent things.
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The problem is: there is no hope for bad people. But if we are really honest, we know deep down that none of us has lived up to our own standards of right and wrong. In fact a lot of intelligent, decent and sincere people in Nazi Germany supported Hitler in his oppression of the Jews, disabled and gypsies. Is it not possible that we are also capable of similar evils given the same environment and context? Not only is this perspective narrow and exclusive, its understanding of sin is too superficial. Of course, hurting and killing people like Hitler is wrong and cruel. Comparing our moral performance with people like him may make us look relatively good. But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us deserve to go to heaven. Why not? As we have seen earlier, the root of sin is much more radical than that: Sin is not merely doing bad things like hurting other people. In the parable of Jesus that we read just now: When we do not care for the hungry, the outsider, the poor and the sick, you do not care for God. He says: “Whatever you did not do to one of these, you did not do for me”. When we tell a lie, hurt someone or consume greedily, the most offended party is God. Fundamentally sin is making good things into ‘God’ things. It is loving anything more than God, essentially being our own ‘god’ (self centeredness); trusting in our own wisdom, power and goodness. Do you remember the character Gollum/Smeagol in the movie Lord of the rings? He’s obsessed with a beautiful, innocent and preciousssss ring. The ring is not obviously evil. People start off wanting it to do some good and noble things like Boromir who wanted the ring’s power to defend his homeland. That’s a noble purpose but the ring amplifies that desire so much so that he desires it more than everything else and doesn’t care how he gets it or who gets hurt along the way. When that happens, it becomes an idol that controls, corrupts and destroys them. Eventually Gollum become corrupted and twisted, being enslaved by it. That’s what happens at the heart of sin. Wars, oppression and other obvious evils are just symptoms of that subtle but dangerous root of idolatry in our hearts. So the Christian faith does not teach that people go to heaven by just following a set of moral rules. Even if you try to be good and decent, you may be doing it as a way to earn your salvation and save yourself from hell. It’s still motivated by Self interest. The ultimate goal is still: Me, myself and I. All of us are guilty of this, therefore all have sinned against God and deserve punishment until we see our spiritual condition and seek forgiveness and change through Jesus. Our eternal destiny does not depend on being good, but on how we respond to the grace of God. It is inclusive and open to all: “No matter who you are or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been to the gates of hell. You can be welcomed and embraced through Jesus”. If we are not willing to admit our need for forgiveness… if we rather choose to continue in the self-centeredness of our hearts, then God will say to us, “Your will be done. I will let you continue in your chosen direction forever”. That’s why C.S. Lewis says: Hell is
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the greatest monument to human freedom. Nobody goes to hell except people who willfully chose it. Isn’t that justice with irony? They get what they always wanted (separation from God) when God actively punished them by excluding them from His presence. But if we say to God, “Lord, I don’t want to run my life centered on myself. Your will be done. Your love is better than life. You are my treasure. A day in your presence is better than a thousand elsewhere,” then living with God forever is heaven. Again, C.S. Lewis here: “There are only two kinds of people – those who say to God, ‘thy will be done’ to God or those to whom God in the end says, ‘Thy will be done.’ All that are in Hell choose it. Without that self-choice it wouldn’t be Hell.” Ok fine. Granted that everybody deserves to be judged but how can a lifetime of sin (maximum: 100 years) deserve an eternity in hell? You sin for only 50 years but get punished forever. Isn’t that punishment disproportionate and unjust? Well, there is a hidden but shaky assumption behind this question: That the seriousness of a crime depends on the length of time taken to commit it. The longer it takes, the more serious it is. But a thief may take half a day to break into a house but it may just take 10 minutes to murder someone. Surely the act of murder is much more serious than stealing. So the seriousness of a crime does not depend on the length of time taken to commit it, but to the dignity of the person sinned against. Let’s do a mental experiment. Imagine a guy kicking a harmless dog or slapping a friend. That’s wrong, but if he kicks or slaps his own mother, that same act is exceedingly more sinful, deserving a heavier penalty. Although the outward action may be the same, the moral difference lies in the worth and dignity of his parent. Since he owes honor and respect to his mother much more than the dog, the crime of harming someone so worthy of his love is even more heinous and horrible. Now extrapolate that and consider the Lord who has loved us, gave us His life and supremely worthy of our utmost worship and honor. Here is someone to whom we owe infinite honor, respect and love. Therefore, the act of sinning against Someone of such supreme worth is infinitely heinous and deserves a proportionately infinite punishment. On top of that, there is no reason to think that those lost in hell will ever change and repent of their sins. Those who finally reject God will continue in denial, self absorption and resentment even in the midst of suffering or regret. If so, then eternal punishment in hell would be fair and proportionate with the seriousness of their ongoing crime. You see, at the end of the day, it is easy to debate the justice of God in judging evil while sitting at Starbucks, sipping coffee and enjoying the comforts of modern life. But for people who live under oppression, violence and injustice, the judgment and vengeance of
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God against all evil comes like a fresh drink in the desert. That God will have a day of reckoning for the wicked is an inspiration and a comfort for the oppressed. Now that we have seen what hell is and how it manifests the justice of God… but what about the love of God? How does Hell reveal to us the love of God? A college friend once shared with me that his motivation to be a Christian was mainly because he is scared of the prospect of eternal torture in hell. That’s it. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” he asked me. What do you think? Many people were shaken after hearing a strong fire and brimstone sermon and became Christians out of fear to escape hell. Well, on one hand, if hell is real, then being afraid of it sounds like a reasonable response. If hell is half as bad as it sounds, then we ought to be afraid. Be very afraid. But on the other hand, it seems a bit strange if a person becomes a Christian solely out of fear. Imagine if Grace, my wife, chooses to marry me out of fear that if she doesn’t, a lot of unhappiness and misery would befall her. Maybe that is probably true but if that’s all that motivate her then I’d be greatly disappointed. It seems to miss the whole point of marriage, doesn’t it? What about the bits about loving the person and so on? In the same way, to say you worship and trust in God mainly because you are scared of eternal punishment sounds something like that. You may fear hell but that doesn’t necessarily mean you are captivated by the love of God. People may want to be Christians in order to escape from hell, but they are not necessarily transformed and captured by love for God. Love, not fear, ought to be the main driving force for trusting in Christ as Lord and Savior. So how can the biblical teaching of hell show us just how amazing is God’s love for us? We will only catch a glimpse of how high and wide and deep is the love of Christ when we see how He went through hell for us on the cross. Many people today say: “A God who sends people to hell is cruel. He should simply forgive them. That’s his job – to forgive. Isn’t that kind of God more loving and kind?” But unless you believe in hell, you will never know how much Jesus loves you and sacrificed for you. On the cross He cried, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). Tim Keller wrote this in an article called “Preaching hell in a tolerant age: Brimstone for the broad-minded” and I quote at length: “To lose a friend’s love hurts but to lose the love of a spouse hurts more. The deeper the relationship, the more devastating is our loss. On the cross, when Jesus lost the eternal love of the Father and experienced the isolation and disintegration we deserve in hell. Only knowing such personal love will liberate us to love instead of fear.” If you say God simply forgives everyone and doesn’t need to punish anyone, a question still remains: "What did it cost this kind of God to love us and embrace us? What did he
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endure in order to receive us? When did this God agonize, cry out? Where were his nails and thorns?" The only answer is: "I don't think that is necessary." How ironic. In our effort to make God more loving, we have made God less loving. His love, in the end, needed to take no action. It was sentimentality, not love at all. The worship of a God like this will be impersonal, cognitive, ethical. There will be no joyful self-abandonment, no humble boldness, no constant sense of wonder. We would not sing to such a being, "Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all." The irony is… Only when you see Jesus bearing our isolation and pain and sorrows and sins on the cross, enduring separation from communion with the Father, will you ever know that amazing love that captures and transforms your heart. Only then will you be freed to love God for who He is and not for self-interest. Only then will you be freed to care others in society for God’s sake. When we see the hungry and feed them, when we see a stranger in need and welcome him, or visit the sick; we do it for the King. Wait a minute… but don’t you create horrible social divisions if you think everyone else is going to hell while only people who share your beliefs go to heaven? That’s what you see in Malaysian when race and religion get mixed up, right? “You believe others are going to hell. Isn’t that gonna make you look down on others and think you are superior to them?” Actually the opposite is true. If we are saved by moral performance then it is possible to look down on others. But not if you are saved by sheer grace of God, you are not any better than others, so how can you possibly be arrogant and look down on others? Miroslav Volf is a Croatian Christian who knew violence in the conflicts of former Yugoslavia. He chose to stay back with his people when he could have chosen a comfortable life as a theology professor. He wrote that peace and non-violence requires belief in divine judgment in an important book called Exclusion and Embrace. He says: “If God were not angry at injustice and did not make a final end to violence, He would not be worthy of worship. The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from God… the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine vengeance…” Only if I am sure God will right all wrongs will I have the power to refrain from violent revenge in the face of horrible injustice. We don’t take justice into our own hands because the ultimate Punisher is God. Our motives are mixed at best. But He sees all and His eyes are pure. Instead of promoting violence, belief in hell actually empowers us to forgive without condoning sin, to leave room for God to repay. We can be agents of peace and reconciliation in society by trusting in God’s promise to deliver final justice.
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To wrap things up, here is the final analysis: the biblical teaching of a final judgment is crucial for Christian living because it enables us to forgive others freely and provides a moral restraint against sin. It magnifies the justice of God in punishing evil and putting the world to right. Only against the grim and dark backdrop of divine anger can we see the glorious splendor of the Father’s love for us who would send His only Son to experience hell on our behalf. Because of that, it provides a powerful motive for evangelism and compassion. The only appropriate response after understanding the horrible nature of hell is nothing less than a renewed love for the many people in our city who do not yet know the Lord. No one comes to God except through Jesus for there is salvation in no other name. And for those who have not had the chance to hear the gospel, God can bypass the normal channels and work through dreams, visions and a hundred other creative and extraordinary means. We hear many stories like that of Muslims who seek Allah and found Nabi Isa through dreams and so on. A person who is searching and willing to love God as Cornelius did in the book of Acts can receive a direct revelation that leads to his salvation. So we don’t need to worry about whether anyone unjustly ends up in hell through no fault of their own. What should concern us is that God has showered his grace in our lives and gave us the privilege to be witnesses of his good news to those around us who could have the chance to respond to the gospel. What are we doing about that? Let me just mention briefly that some brothers and sisters in the church felt a burden to care for the needy and give food to hungry around us, others felt led by the Spirit to help us care for our souls through spiritual disciplines (and let the gospel free us from the idolatry of sex, money and power)… It’s exciting stuff! Please be encouraged to be part of what God is doing in our midst in reaching out. “Whatever you do for one of these you do it for Jesus”. Personally what I really hope to do is to be able to have conversational evangelism with college students or working adults who are curious, have serious questions or objections about the Christian faith. If you are in touch with people like that and felt led to reach out to them, I’d really love to talk to you and see what we can do together for the gospel. That’s probably the best response after a horrible sermon like this… a renewed love for the many people in our city who do not yet know the Lord. Let us pray and commit what’s in our heart to Him.
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