We are in a short sermon series in which we are considering some of the objections that people raise when we tell them of a supremely loving God.
This week we ask the question: ‘If God is loving, how can he send people to Hell?’ This may be the hardest question of all. For when we think seriously of Hell, the image that comes to mind is the Biblical image of a lake of fire. I have met a man and seen pictures of others who have been burned beyond recognition yet lived. A moment of agony beyond belief and they are disfigured beyond recognition. The thought of anyone consigned to an eternity of fire fills us with horror. And rightly so.
Charles Templeton, evangelist turned atheist, said, “I couldn’t hold someone’s hand to a fire for a moment. Not for an instant! How could a loving God, just because you don’t obey him and do what he wants, torture you forever – not allowing you to die, but to continue in that pain for eternity? There is no criminal who would do this!”
Templeton speaks for many. The doctrine of Hell is abhorrent. So the thought that God could choose to send millions to such a place is just as abhorrent. That we dare to call such a God a loving God is more abhorrent still. And by association, any religion that claims such a God is a religion people want nothing to do with.
Lee Strobel, atheist turned evangelist, said he, too, had once wrestled with the whole concept of hell, that he had considered hell ‘cosmic overkill… an autocratic and unappealable sentence to an eternity of torture and torment.’ Yet, unlike Charles Templeton, Strobel found answers and became a committed Christian.
Are there answers? I believe there are, and so that’s what we want to consider together today. As we do that, we need to understand that the idea of hell evokes an emotional and visceral response in us and in most people. It makes us shudder and recoil, as well it should. But we must be careful of judging the appropriateness of hell based on our emotional response to it, but on whether Hell is a ‘morally just or right state of affairs’, as one scholar has put it.
I want to do a number of things today. I want, first, to talk about, what we do and do not know about Hell Biblically. Then, second, talk about who goes to Hell and why. And then, thirdly, talk about God’s character as it bears upon the reality of Hell.
But I want to lay the groundwork by doing a brief word study. You may be aware that the Old Testament was written originally in Hebrew, and the New Testament in Greek. And our English Bibles are, of course, translations.
There is one Hebrew word, and three Greek words, that are important for us today, because there are three different Greek words that we have translated ‘hell’, and these words do not all carry the same meaning. So I want to walk you quickly through them.
We’ll start with the Hebrew word she’ol. She’ol was the name given to what might best be termed ‘the place of the dead’. It is the place where the spirit of a person goes after the death of the body. You will usually find it translated in your Bible as ‘the depths’ or the ‘grave’. In Psalm 139:8, for example, the psalmist says to God, If I go up to the heavens you are there; if I make my bed in the depths [she’ol], you are there.
She’ol is a place of waiting, a place of conscious existence, where people seem to be aware of their surroundings. Yet it does not seem to be the same kind of existence for everyone. It is a place of rest for the righteous, and a place of gloom and shadow for the unrighteous.
So, for example, in Isaiah 14, a prophetic poem against the king of Babylon, paints a picture of those in she’ol giving a morbid welcome to the wicked king upon his demise:
The grave [she’ol] beneath is stirred up to meet you when you come; it rouses the shades to greet you, all who were leaders on the earth; it raises from their thrones all who were kings of the nations.
All of them will answer you: ‘You too have become as weak of we are! You have become like us! Your pomp is brought down to the grave, the sound of your harps; maggots are laid as a bed beneath you, and worms are your cover.’
Contrast that with 1 Samuel 28, where evil King Saul uses a witch to rouse the spirit of Samuel, and Samuel says: Why have you disturbed me by bringing me up?…. Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me.
The prophet Daniel is told by an angel in Daniel 12: Go your way until the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise.
So the Old Testament data seems to indicate that She’ol is the place where the spirits of the dead go, a place of conscious waiting. It is a good place, restful, for the righteous, and a dark, gloomy place for the unrighteous.
Understanding something of the concept of she’ol in the Old Testament is important for us because of a word that occurs in the New Testament. There is a Greek word that is the exact equivalent of she’ol. It is a familiar word to us, and it is the word hades. ‘Hades’ to the Greeks was the place of the dead, the underworld. The word occurs several times in the New Testament and is usually (but not always) translated ‘hell’. That’s an unfortunate translation.
For example, Jesus told a parable in Luke 16 about a rich man and a poor man: the rich man was in hades, and the poor man at Abraham’s side, but they could see and talk to each other, the rich man suffering and the poor man at rest.
Or Ephesians 4:8, where it says of Jesus: When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men. (What does ‘he ascended’ mean except that he also descended to the lower earthly regions? It sounds like a reference to She’ol or hades, as if Jesus at his own death, descended into hades and brought the spirits of the righteous to heaven with him at his ascension into heaven. This sheds light on Jesus’ comment in Matthew 16:18, where he said, I will build my church and the gates of hades will not prevail against it. (You’ll remember that at his resurrection he told the women ‘I have not yet been to my Father’, and to the thief ‘Today you will be with me in paradise’, which the Jews would have understood as ‘Abraham’s side’, the place of rest in she’ol. Between his death and resurrection it sounds like he was in hades.)* The righteous he then brought to heaven. The unrighteous remain in hades or she’ol until the end of time, where we read in Revelation that the sea, and death, and hades gave up the dead that were in them.
The upshot is that hades is not hell. In fact, we read in Revelation this morning that death and hades will be thrown into the lake of fire. Hades is the place of waiting, like she’ol.
A second Greek word, and more important for our purposes this morning, is the word Gehenna. This is the word that Jesus most often used when he talked about the eternal destiny of the sinner. Gehenna was the Greek rendering of the name of a very specific place, the Valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem. Some of the wicked kings in the Old Testament had done what the prophets called ‘made their children pass through the fire’, that is: they had burned even their own children as sacrifices to the pagan idol Molech(!). Those sacrifices took place in the Valley of Hinnom. In 2 Kings 23:10 we read of the revival under King Josiah: He desecrated Topheth, which was in the Valley of Ben Hinnom, so no one could use it to sacrifice his son or his daughter in the fire to Molech.
By New Testament times the Valley of Hinnom (in Greek: Gehenna) had become a burning ground not only for garbage, but for the leftover animal parts from the temple sacrifices, and for the most putrid waste of the city. Fires burned there continually.
And so Gehenna became a popular metaphor or picture for Hell and most of the occurrences of the word ‘hell’ in the New Testament are translations of this word Gehanna. More significantly, of the twelve occurrences of this word, eleven of them come from the mouth of Jesus.
For example, in Matthew 10:28 he warns his disciples: Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell (Gehenna). Or Mark 9:43 – If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed than with two hands to go into hell [Gehenna] where the fire never goes out.
Our third and last term is the word Tartarus. In Greek mythology, Tartarus was a place geographically lower than Hades, where divine punishment was meted out. It occurs only once in the New Testament, in 2 Peter 2:4 – God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell [Tartarus], putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgement.
This is probably the Abyss of Luke 8:31, and Rev 9:2, a place of incarceration for demons until the final judgement.
Four other passages are significant for our understanding of Hell:
Matthew 13:49-50. In his parable of the net, where fisherman catch fish and separate good fish from bad, Jesus says, This is how it will be at the end of the age: the angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 22:8-14, Jesus’ parable of the wedding banquet, where the wicked person is cast out into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Matthew 25: 31-46. This is Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goat, where Jesus says to the goats, Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels.
And, of course, Revelation chapters 19 & 20 & 21:8 which speak of the fiery lake of burning sulphur,where those whose names are not written in the book of life are cast, along with the Devil and his angels.
That is just a relatively brief survey of some of the words and concepts that inform our understanding of Hell.
From this as our starting point, what do we know about hell, Biblically? We know a few things:
We know, first of all, that hell is not hades. Hades is some kind of intermediate state between death and the final judgement, where hell is an eternal state after the final judgement. So in Jesus’ parable of the rich man and the poor beggar in Luke 16, for example, don’t read that as Jesus’ teaching about hell.
Second, we know that hell is real. We don’t know much about what hell will specifically be like. The language used of hell is highly symbolic. For example, the lake of fire: fire is routinely used in Scripture as a metaphor for God’s judgement, so a lake of fire probably means to be immersed in the wrathful judgement of God. It is hard to imagine a lake of fire also being a place of darkness, for example. It is also hard to know how death, which is not a real object, could be thrown into a lake of fire. So we don’t need to take those terms literally, and the experience of hell is probably not a sensation of eternal physical burning.
However, don’t think I’m trying to take the edge off of hell. I’m not. For there is a reality behind the symbolic language. Jesus and the Biblical writers were using images to try to describe the indescribable. But the Scriptures, and Jesus himself, are absolutely clear that Hell is a real place of unspeakable anguish. It may not be physical anguish, but probably is that, too. But Biblically there is no question that hell is a real place of the worst imaginable suffering.
Third, we know that hell is eternal. In Matthew 25 Jesus spoke of the everlasting punishment of the sinner in the same breath as he spoke of the everlasting reward of the righteous. And if we think heaven is eternal, we must then also believe hell is eternal.
Fourth, we know, contrary to a popular misunderstanding, that Satan does not rule in hell.. It is not his turf, and his demons to not lord it over sinners as evil taskmasters who torture lost souls. Hell is prepared as a place of judgement for Satan and his demons, and it is a place of suffering for them.
Now, who goes to hell? Satan and his demons, who have rebelled against God.
But people, too, go to Hell, the Bible says. In Revelation 20 we read,Those whose names were not written in the book of life were thrown into the lake of fire. And this is what bothers us.
Remember what Charles Templeton said, “I couldn’t hold someone’s hand to a fire for a moment. Not for an instant! How could a loving God, just because you don’t obey him and do what he wants, torture you forever – not allowing you to die, but to continue in that pain for eternity? There is no criminal who would do this!”
Here we have a picture of a God who, like a spoiled child, says, ‘I’m God, and I make the rules, and if you don’t play by my rules then I’ll torture you in hell forever.’ And if what Templeton describes is reality, then he – and countless others who share his perspective – would be right to be outraged. Such a God would not be loving!
But the picture Templeton paints is not reality. In fact it is pretty far removed from the truth. For starters, hell is not a torture chamber. Nor does God, like a petulant loser ‘send’ people there as his revenge on them for not playing by his rules. So if Templeton’s picture is not accurate, how do we get a true picture? We can do that, I think, by answering three questions:
- What is God’s nature?
- What is sin’s nature?
- Who goes to hell and why?
First, what is God’s nature?
God is perfect in every way, the very essence of every virtue. This means, among other things, that God is infinitely and perfectly loving, all the time. The Bible, in fact, says God is love. So God never sets aside his love to act according to his other attributes.
So the Bible, therefore, also says things like: God is not willing that any should perish but all to come to repentance… and: God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth and : God so loved the world that he gave his only son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. So the thought that God somehow takes a perverse pleasure in taking vicious revenge on people who don’t play by his rules is diametrically opposed to the God of the Bible.
Far from it. In the Bible we read that God created people to have a love relationship with him. We see God’s repeated overtures of love and reconciliation to a people who had estranged themselves from him.
God’s perfection, though, also means he is ‘holy’, or morally pure. Your eyes are pure to look upon evil, you cannot tolerate wrong, the Bible says. In him is no darkness at all… Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, the three-fold use of ‘holy’ signifying infinite or perfect holiness.
God is also just. Justice is one of the highest values of our society. If a wrong is done, we expect that justice be carried out. In fact, in our newspapers we read increasingly of people’s outrage over our justice system, that criminals are not being dealt with justly. We would never respect a judge who convicted a criminal of a serious crime and then let him go free.
Similarly, God’s just nature requires that he deal justly with sin. In theory, God could just unilaterally forgive sin. That would be merciful, and God is certainly that. But it would not be just. It would not be right.
Say for example, that I rob a bank and steal thousands of dollars, and spend it. The money is gone. Then I am apprehended and brought before the court. The judge sees my remorse and even genuine repentance, has pity on me and commutes the sentence. I’m free to go. That is merciful, but not just. Because the offense is still outstanding. The money is still stolen and gone. There is a still a party with a loss that has not been satisfied. Justice is not served until the offense has been paid for somehow. Even if the exact offense cannot be reversed – ie. I can’t pay back the money – some form of retribution is needed for justice to be served. Our whole justice system is built upon that premise. That’s why when someone has served their jail time, or paid their fine, or put in their hours of community service, we say they have ‘paid their debt to society’.
God in his justice, must and will see justice done: the debt for every offense will be paid. If he did not do that, he would compromise his own perfect character.
But even if that is granted (and we all would all, I think, affirm that some form of punishment or retribution is necessary to the idea of justice) there is still the question of the extreme severity of Hell. Isn’t Hell over the top? If justice also means that ‘the-punishment-should-fit-the-crime’, then doesn’t hell mean God is ultimately unjust? Lee Strobel called it ‘cosmic overkill’. Eternal, infinite agony. That’s an excessive retribution for simply not doing what God wants. Isn’t it? Remember Charles Templeton’s image: that really does make God sound not just like a spoiled, angry child, but a vicious one with ultimate power. Nasty.
But is it ‘cosmic overkill’? Does sin warrant that kind of retribution?
Well, secondly, what is sin?
Just as crime is the willful assertion of one’s own will against the laws of society, sin is the willful assertion of one’s own will against the will of God. Not the ‘arbitrary rules of God’, but against that which is objectively right as conforming to the perfection of his character and therefore to the order of all things. And that is something we all have done, not once, but consistently. All of us have lied, or stolen, or lusted, or been mean, or been hypocritical, or envied, etc. These are more than just human weaknesses or mistakes. They are sins: willing departures from what we know is right. On top of all that, there is the king of all sins: the elevation of something, anything, over God in our lives. That’s sin not because God is petty and demands to be loved above all else. It’s sin because God just the supremely good Master and Creator of everything that exists. It has nothing to do with what he wants. It has to do with who he just is. And if God said it was okay to love and honour something more than himself, he would again be going against that which is objectively, eternally right, and that he can’t do any more than he could say 2 + 2 = 5. It just isn’t so.
And all of us have, more times than not, given our highest allegiance to something other than God. Maybe comfort, maybe religion, maybe the affirmation of others. But we’ve all displaced God from the centre of our lives more often than not, and many people live their whole lives like that.
That is an offense of the highest magnitude, and every other ‘sin’ is simply an expression of that one offense. Every sin is our way of saying, ‘I know you said this, God, but….’ The very first sin of Adam and Eve was exactly that: ‘I know you said, God, that we must not eat from this tree, but we’re going to anyway.’
Anyone who has felt the real inner conviction of having sinned knows the gravity of sin. The prophet Isaiah, when he had a vision of God in all his glory, immediately responding by brokenly crying out, Woe is me, I am a sinful man, one of a sinful people. The apostle Peter, in Luke 5, when he had his first understanding of who Jesus was, immediately said, Go away from me Lord, I am a sinful man.
What retribution does sin deserve?
Who the sin is against is also a factor. A poacher who illegally kills ten deer and a person who murders ten people. We rightly consider one offense worse than another, and so punish the offenders differently. We wouldn’t think twice if someone punched Hitler in the face. If someone gave Mother Theresa a black eye we’d be appalled. A sin against God is grievous because it is a sin against God.
Any sin against God is an infinite offense because it is a sin against the infinite holiness or moral purity of God. I always think of this in terms of an inflated balloon. To take a chainsaw to it would be to destroy it. But to lightly prick it with a pin would have the same effect. In the same way, a ‘small’ sin violates what is right and good just as truly as a ‘greater’ sin.
Third, Who goes to hell, and why?
In his book The Goodness of God, John Wenham writes:
According to the Bible, the supreme retribution is death, and death (both physical death and eternal spiritual death) is what sin deserves. Basically, sin is preferring to go one’s own way rather than God’s way: to choose one’s own self-centred, selfish, corrupting world rather than the unspeakable glory of life in the presence of the great, holy, loving God. That way can only mean damnation. Anything is better than that – it is better to lose your right hand, your right foot or your right eye, says our Lord, than that….. If God exists and if man is made for the very purpose of enjoying God’s love, his rejection of that love can only mean ultimate disaster. He puts himself under the wrath of God, for the wrath of God is the obverse of the love of God, it is love rejected…. To sin means ultimately to forfeit heaven, and this is the greatest possible punishment which anyone can ever conceive, and this is the punishment which sin deserves.
And it’s here that we see what Hell really is: it is the forfeiting of heaven. It is separation for eternity from God. Hell is not, then, a torture chamber where God has arranged a number of horrible experiences to inflict suffering on you. Hell is the experience of being separated from God. And since we exist for God and fullness of life is found only in God, to be separated from him is to live in despair, and this despair is so absolute that the suffering it entails can only be likened to being in a lake of fire, a place of darkness where people will eternally gnash their teeth in agony and regret. And so it is also true, then, that Hell is not just punishment. It is consequence.
God is the most generous, loving, wonderful, attractive being in the universe. He has made us with free will and he has made us for a purpose: to relate lovingly to him and to others. We are not accidents, we are not monkeys. And if we fail over and over to live for the purpose for which we were made (a purpose, by the way, which would allow us to flourish more than living any other way, then God will have absolutely no choice but to give us what we’ve asked for all along in our lives, which is separation from him. And that is Hell. (Dr. J.P. Moreland)
C.S Lewis has said that there are only two kinds of people: those who say to God, ‘Your will be done’, and those to whom God will ultimately say, ‘Your will be done.’
Or in the words of D.A. Carson: Hell is not a place where people are consigned because they were pretty good folks but just didn’t believe the right stuff. They’re consigned there, first and foremost, because they defy their Maker and want to be at the centre of the universe. Hell is not filled with people who have already repented, only God isn’t gentle enough or good enough to let them out. It’s filled with people who, for all eternity, still want to be the centre of the universe and who persist in their God-defying ways.
Now, couldn’t God just annihilate people who’ve rejected or ignored him? Instead of Hell, why not just let death be the end, and they cease to exist? That would not be just, either, for people would still avoid retribution. Sin does not just mean we forfeit a blessing. It means we owe a debt. And annihilation ignores that.
No, the reality of Hell, as awful as it is, is just. More than that, it gives people what all of their lives they have demanded: freedom from God. So there’s a sense in which God does not actually send anyone to Hell, but gives them the freedom to choose it.
G. K. Chesterton has said cheekily but truly, I think: “Hell is God’s great compliment to the reality of human freedom and the dignity of human choice.”
How does this all square with God’s love?
What the Bible tells us about God is that in fact he, too, is horrified at the thought of people going to Hell. He has bent over backwards to prevent it. He has given ample testimony to his reality as a personal, good deity in creation. Further than that, he has instilled in people a conscience, and instinctive sense of right and wrong to guide us. Romans 1 & 2 say that even people who don’t have the personal, specific revelation of God that the Jews had in the Old Testament, still had enough data in creation to understand his reality and his character was, and they had moral conscience to know what was right, and yet they willfully chose to suppress the truth.
But beyond that, even, God was so committed to turning people away from the road to Hell that he sent his son Jesus to the world to die for sins. Jesus: sinless and divine, gave his life of infinite worth to pay the infinite debt of our sins. Willingly and out of love God surrendered his son for us. Out of obedience to his father and sharing God’s love for us, Jesus died.
Jesus died precisely so that people could be restored to God and not be separated form him in Hell. In Jesus’ death justice is served in that the penalty or debt of sin was paid. If, after I robbed the bank, the judge had forgiven me and let me go. As I said, that would be merciful, but justice would not have been served. Suppose he let me go, and then out his own pocket paid back the thousands of dollars I had stolen. Then justice would also have been served.
Or what if my crime had been worse, and I had been found guilty of a crime in which my punishment would have been life in prison, or execution. On my genuine repentance, the judge could let me go: mercy. But suppose he himself served my sentence, and gave his own life. That’s what Christ did.
On the cross, God’s punishment was poured out and the penalty for sin paid. Justice.
But it was Christ taking that on himself in our place, that we might go free. Mercy.
We can choose to continue to ignore God, in which case God will eternally give us what we have chosen: to have nothing to do with him. Or we can accept it and say to him: “Yes, I believe that in your love you gave your son Jesus for my sins. And I choose to live my life under your good Lordship, to cultivate the relationship with you I was made for.” Upon that decision, which we call ‘putting your faith in Jesus’, there is forgiveness, and the gift of eternal life.
God so loved us that he paid even that price to rescue us from Hell and bring us to himself.
Now, the reality of Hell should motivate people toward God. Not out of fear. But if the horror of Hell is the natural end of a life without God, then by contrast how rich and full is the life lived with God! Jesus said, I have come that they might have life to the full. We were made for God and cannot be satisfied without him, and people should respond to him for that reason alone.
But then also, it is just right to love and worship and obey God, because of who he is. He deserves it, he is worthy of it. Life surrendered to him is life well-spent.
Hell should motivate us, too, who have already put faith in Jesus. We need to let our hearts be struck again with the reality of Hell and do everything in our power to turn people from it. ‘Everything in our power’ probably does not mean preaching at people, though sometimes the mere truth will convict. But all too often Christians have preached the truth, but not out of love, and not backed up with a life of integrity or a heart of love. Christ’s love compels us, the Bible says of our being ambassadors for Christ.
How do we urgently go join God in his mission to turn people around on the road to Hell?
We pray for people: neighbours, loved ones, co-workers. Pray urgently that God would save them, that they would respond to him, to believe and love him.
So pray.
Secondly, live with integrity and love. Don’t be sidetracked by busyness or frantically paying off this or that. These things diminish us when they rule us. Walk with God and let his life come to fullness in you. The people around you – at home, school, and work – need to see that life lived with God really is better than the life they’re living.
Then, third, witness: talk – let the name of Jesus come to your lips readily. As you consistently let God be central to your life, it will be more natural for you to talk about him. Invite: our Christmas Eve service will be a great way for people to hear simply but clearly the truth of God and his love. We promise it will be a service you can confidently bring friends to. It will be good!
We as a church are committed to seeing people come to faith in Jesus. It’s why we exist. Hell is so supremely dreadful, and God so supremely good that we will do whatever it takes for people to know him. Right?
It is pure mercy and grace that God has rescued us from Hell. And I can’t help but think that instead of being appalled that a loving God would judge people for sin, we should be amazed that a just God would love us.
Amen.