Okay, so isn't hell just a scare tactic that Christians use to pressurize vulnerable people into joining their church? Isn't it a myth amplified by fire-and-brimstone preachers in rural parishes who love the sound of their own voice a bit too much? Who has the right to say someone is going to hell anyway? Surely you can't possibly know what happens to someone after they die...
There are dozens of objections to the concept of hell, framing themselves in various moral, philosophical or logical guises. But the heart of the matter is really this: how can we know if there is a hell?
Well, Christians believe in an all-knowing, all-seeing God. A God who is timeless and eternal, who created the cosmos and watches over it. This God at one point in human history became a man and took on human flesh: Jesus Christ. And, as the Son of God, Jesus is able to tell us unique things about heaven and hell, because He had a divine perspective on them that no mere human could ever achieve.
And it follows that most of what Christians know about hell comes directly from Jesus Christ. He spoke about hell like no one else ever had done (namely because they couldn't), and He spoke about hell in the loving authority which characterised His ministry as recorded in the four gospel accounts.
Jesus said:
1. Hell is real, and hell is terrible.
In several parables, including the parable of the Great Banquet, Jesus shows those who rejected God to be thrown outside 'into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.' (Matthew 8:12) These three things (darkness, weeping, gnashing of teeth) are used repeatedly by Jesus to depict what hell is like. It is basically the place outside God's kingdom, where God's presence does not dwell, and so all of the good things we enjoy on earth (happiness, joy, friendship, love etc) are absent too. No one can enjoy anything in hell. It is a place of sadness and torture.
2. Hell is the place where people go to eternal punishment, having been judged by God and condemned.
'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.' Matthew 10:28
'The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.' Matthew 13:41
Everyone who sins -that is, everyone who ever fails to love God with their whole heart, all of the time- is destined for hell because we all fall short of God's pure standards (see also Romans 3).
3. Hell is easy to get to- it's the default position of men to go against God.
'Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.' Matthew 7:13
4. Hell is to be avoided at all costs.
'If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.' Matthew 5:29-30
This is extreme language! Jesus warns us that it's worth undergoing great pain and struggle to avoid hell.
5. Hell can only be avoided through faith in Him.
After the parable of the weeds, which so vividly depicts the destruction of evildoers, Jesus tells the parable of the great treasure and the pearl. He says that heaven is worth giving up everything for, and seeking more than anything else in this life. How do we seek and find the kingdom? Well, the key is in the King of the kingdom: Jesus.
'Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven.' Matthew 10:32-33
Getting into heaven and thus avoiding hell is not about doing good deeds and racking up a tally chart before God. It's about knowing Jesus. Acknowledging Jesus means to see Him for who He truly is: the Son of God; to believe in Him and trust in Him for salvation. Who has the right to decide who goes to hell? Jesus does. That's what He means in the verses quoted above. If Jesus disowns you, you're heading to an eternity without Him.
Now the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25) teaches us that, if we truly know Jesus, we will show this in the way that we act- helping the poor and needy around us and working for justice. But ultimately we've been given our life here on earth to get to know Jesus, and if you spend your life ignoring Him then you're wasting your life!
Christians don't relish the idea of hell. It's an awful thought. But, just as you would want to warn people of an oncoming tsunami to save them, Christians want to share the truth of Jesus with people so they can avoid the danger too.
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2 comments:
I've read your blog for a while now, and find it very interesting (even if I don't always agree).
However, I can't say I've ever fully understood this particular concept - you say that hell is where the good things we enjoy on earth are absent - which ties in with the R-C belief that 'This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."' But surely this entails that the bad things of the world, those that we would experience in hell by rejecting god, are somehow separate from him, 'outside god's kingdom?' Does this mean that they are outside his control? And is then equivalent sadness within the world also separate from god's command? Or if you say that he controls everything including hell (i.e. sadness and torture), this does not avoid the old question concerning free will, whereby we are granted the choice of how to live, but punished horribly and brutally if we choose anything other than what we are told to choose, thus seemingly making the choice rather coerced.
Thanks so much for commenting Jack. I don't think I can say I fully understand this concept either! I think it's one of those things that we need to trust the Bible on as best we can. I definitely believe that God has control over everything- both good and bad- for example, the way He works to harden Pharaoh's heart in Exodus. The book of Revelation shows that the punishment of hell is firmly under God's control, as He orders it and declares it (see Revelation 14:9-11).
In regards to free will, I'm not entirely sure that it is a biblical concept. We certainly are told to choose to live God's way and believe in Him, but that is something we can only do when God's Spirit has opened our blind eyes (see Acts 26:18).
The ultimate passage to turn to is Romans 9, which deals with the very issue you raise: if God chooses who is saved and who is not, how can men be held responsible? how is that fair? Paul writes:
'What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."[f] 16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."[g] 18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "[h] 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?'
This is a really hard teaching to get your head around, so I pray that God would help me to think more His way instead of trying to press His word into saying what I want it to say.
Hope that helps!
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