For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
The hero
of heaven is God. Angels don’t worship mansions or golden streets. Gates and
jewels don’t prompt the hosts to sing. God does. His majesty stirs the pen of
heaven’s poets and the awe of its citizens. They enjoy an eternity-long answer
to David’s prayer: “One thing I ask of the LORD . . . to gaze upon the beauty
of the LORD.” (Ps. 27:4) What else deserves a look? Inhabitants of heaven
forever marvel at the sins God forgives, the promises he keeps, and the plans
he executes. He’s not the grand marshal of the parade; he is the parade. He’s
not the main event; he’s the only event. His Broadway is a single stage and
star: himself. He hosts the only production and invites every living soul to see.
He, at this very moment, issues invitations by the millions. He whispers
through the kindness of a grandparent, or shouts through the tempest of a
tsunami. Through the funeral he cautions, “Life is fragile;” through a sickness
he reminds us, “Days are numbered.” God may speak through nature or nurture,
majesty or mishap, but through it all he invites: “Come, enjoy me forever.”
But a lot
of people don’t care. They don’t want anything to do with God. He speaks and
they cover their ears. He commands and they scoff. They don’t want him telling
them how to live their lives. They mock what he says about marriage, money or
the value of human life. They regard his son as a joke, and the cross as foolishness.
(1 Cor. 1:18) They spend their lives telling God to leave them alone. And at
the moment of their final breath, he honors their request: “Get away from me,
you who do evil. I never knew you.” (Matt. 7:23) This verse is, perhaps, the
most somber of Christian realities: hell.
No topic
stirs greater resistance. Who wants to think about eternal punishment? We
prefer to dumb down the issue, make jokes about its residents or turn the noun
into an adjective. Odd that we don’t do the same with lesser tragedies. For
instance, you never hear, “My golf game has gone to prison.” Or, “This is
an AIDS of a traffic jam.” It seems like there’s a conspiracy to minimize hell.
Some, on the other hand, prefer to sanitize the subject, dismissing it as a
moral impossibility. Bertrand Russell, a self-described atheist, said, “I do
not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in
everlasting punishment.” Or, as is more typical, “A loving God wouldn’t send
people to hell.” It’s as if hell has disappeared and no one noticed.
And it’s easy
to understand why. Hell is a hideous topic. Any person who discusses it glibly,
or proclaims it gleefully has really failed to consider it deeply. Scripture
writers dip quills into gloomy ink to describe its nature. They speak of the
“blackest darkness” (Jude 13), “everlasting destruction” (2 Thess. 1:9), and “weeping
and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt. 8:12) And a glimpse into the pit won’t brighten
your day, either. But it will enlighten your understanding of Jesus because he
didn’t avoid the discussion. To the contrary, he planted a one-word caution
sign between you and me and hell’s path: “perish.” “Whoever believes in him shall not perish
but have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Jesus spoke of hell a lot. In fact, thirteen
percent of his teachings refer to eternal judgment and hell, and two-thirds of
his parables relate to resurrection and judgment. Jesus wasn’t cruel
or capricious, but he was blunt. His candor even stuns us. He speaks in
tangible terms. “Fear Him,” he warns, “who is able to destroy both soul and
body in hell.” (Matt. 10:28) He quotes Hades’ rich man pleading for Lazarus to
“dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue.” (Luke 16:24) Words
such as “body,”
“finger” and “tongue” presuppose a state in which a throat longs for
water and a person begs for relief — sentient relief.
The
apostles said that Judas Iscariot had gone “to his own place.” (Acts 1:25) The
Greek word for place is topos, which means a geographical location. And Jesus
describes heaven with the same noun: “In My Father’s house are many mansions. .
. . I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2) Hell, like heaven, is a
location, not a state of mind. It’s not some metaphysical dimension of floating
spirits, but an actual place populated by sentient beings. And God has
quarantined a precinct in his vast universe as the depository for the
hard-hearted. So exactly where is hell? Jesus gives one chilling clue:
“outside.” “Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the
darkness.” (Matt. 22:13) Outside of what? Outside of the boundaries of heaven,
for one thing. Abraham, in paradise, told the rich man in torment, “Between us
and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here
to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.” (Luke 16:26) In other
words, there are no heaven-to-hell field trips. Hell is to heaven what the edge
of our universe is to earth: outside the range of a commute.
Hell is also
outside the realm of conclusion, too. Oh, that hell’s punishment would have an end,
and that God would schedule an execution date. And New Testament language leads
some scholars to believe that he will: Fear Him who is able to destroy
both soul and body in hell. (Matt. 10:28) Whoever believes in him shall not perish.
(John 3:16) Destroy.
Perish. Don’t these words imply an end to suffering? I wish I could
say they do. There’s no point on which I’d more gladly be wrong than the
eternal duration of hell. If God, on the last day, extinguishes the wicked,
I’ll celebrate my misreading of his words. Yet annihilation seems inconsistent
with Scripture. God sobers his warnings with eternal language. Consider John’s
description of the wicked in Revelation 14:11: “the smoke of their torment goes
up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.” So how then could
the euthanized soul “have no rest, day or night”?
Jesus
parallels hell with Gehenna, a rubbish dump outside the southwestern walls of
Jerusalem, infamous for its unending smoldering and decay. He employs Gehenna
as a word picture of hell, the place where the “worm does not die and the fire
is not quenched.” (Mark 9:48) A deathless worm and quenchless fire — however
symbolic these phrases may be — smack of an ongoing consumption of something.
Jesus speaks of sinners being “thrown outside, into the darkness, where there
will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matt. 8:12) If that’s true, how can a
nonexistent person weep or gnash their teeth? And Jesus describes the length of
heaven and hell with the same adjective: eternal. “They will go away into eternal punishment,
but the righteous into eternal life.” (Matt. 25:46) Hell lasts as long as
heaven. It may have a back door or graduation day, but I haven’t found one. And
a lot perishes in hell. Hope perishes. Happiness perishes. But the body and
soul of the God-deniers continue outside. Outside of heaven; outside of hope; outside
of God’s goodness.
None of us
have seen such a blessingless world. Even the vilest of humanity know the grace
of God. People who want nothing of God still enjoy his benefits. Adolf Hitler
witnessed the wonder of the Alps. Saddam Hussein enjoyed the blushing sunrise
of the desert. The dictator, child molester, serial rapist, and drug peddler — all
enjoy the common grace of God’s goodness. They hear children laugh, smell
dinner cooking, and tap their toes to the rhythm of a good song. They deny God
yet enjoy his benevolence.
But these
privileges are confiscated at the gateway to hell. Scofflaws will be “shut out
from the presence of the Lord.” (2 Thess. 1:9) Hell knows none of heaven’s
kindnesses. There’s no overflow of divine perks. The only laughter the
unrepentant hear is evil; the only desires they know are selfish. Hell is
society at its worst. Perhaps more tragically, hell is individuals at their
worst. It surfaces and amplifies the ugliest traits in people. Cravings will go
unchecked. Worriers will fret and never find peace. Thieves will steal and
never have enough. None will be satisfied. Remember: “Their worm does not die.”
(Mark 9:48)
Death
freezes the moral compass. People will remain in the fashion they enter.
Revelation 22:11 seems to emphasize hell’s unrepentant evil: “Let
the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy.” The Godless remain
ungodly because hell is not a correctional facility or a reform school. Its
members hear no admonishing parents, candid sermons, or the Spirit of God.
There’s no voice of God or the voice of God’s people. Spend a lifetime telling
God to be quiet, and he’ll do just that. God honors our request for silence. Hell
is the chosen home of insurrectionists, the Alcatraz of malcontents. Hell is
reserved, not for those souls who seek God yet struggle, but for those who defy
God and rebel. For those who say about Jesus, “We don’t want this man to be our
king.” (Luke 19:14) So, in history’s highest expression of fairness, God honors
their preference. “I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather
that they turn from their ways and live.” (Ezek. 33:11) It is not God’s will
that any should perish, but the fact that some do highlight God’s justice
because God has to punish sin. “Nothing impure will ever enter [heaven], nor
will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names
are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” (Rev. 21:27) God, inherently holy, must exclude
evil from his new universe. God, eternally gracious, never forces his
will. He urges mutineers to stay on board but never ties them to the mast. So,
how could a loving God send sinners to hell? He doesn’t. They volunteer.
Once
there, they don’t want to leave. The hearts of damned fools never soften; their
minds never change. “Men were scorched with great heat, and they blasphemed the
name of God who has power over these plagues; and they did not repent and give
Him glory.” (Rev. 16:9) Contrary to the idea that hell prompts remorse, it
doesn’t. It intensifies blasphemy. Remember the rich man in torment? He could
see heaven but didn’t request a transfer. He wanted Lazarus to descend to him.
Why not ask if he could join Lazarus? The rich man complained of thirst, not
injustice. He wanted water for the body, not water for the soul. Even the
longing for God is a gift from God, and where there is no more of God’s
goodness, there is no longing for him. Though every knee shall bow before God
and every tongue confess his preeminence (Rom. 14:11), the hard-hearted will do
so stubbornly and without worship. There won’t be any atheists in hell (Phil.
2:10–11), but there won’t be any God-seekers either.
But still
we wonder, is the punishment fair? Such a penalty seems inconsistent with a God
of love — overkill you might say. A sinner’s rebellion doesn’t warrant an
eternity of suffering, does it? Isn’t God overreacting? But only he knows the
full story – the number of invitations the stubborn-hearted have refused, and
the slander they’ve spewed. Have you
ever accused God of unfairness? But then again, hasn’t he wrapped caution tape
on hell’s porch and posted a million and one red flags outside the entrance? To
descend its stairs, you’d have to cover your ears, blindfold your eyes and,
most of all, ignore the epic sacrifice of history: Christ, in God’s hell on humanity’s
cross, crying out to the blackened sky, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?” (Matt. 27:46)
It’d be
easier to capture the Pacific Ocean in a jar than describe that sacrifice in
words. But a description might read like this: God, who hates sin, unleashed
his wrath on his sin-filled son. Christ, who never sinned, endured the awful
forsakenness of hell. The supreme surprise of hell is this: Christ went there
so you won’t have to. Yet hell could not contain him. He arose, not just from
the dead, but from the depths. “Through death He [destroyed] him who had the
power of death, that is, the devil.” (Heb. 2:14) Christ emerged from Satan’s
domain with this declaration: “I have the keys of Hades and of Death.” (Rev.
1:18) In other words, he’s the warden of eternity and the door he shuts, no one
opens, and the door he opens, no one shuts. (Rev. 3:7) Thanks to Christ, this
earth can be the nearest you come to hell. But apart from Christ, this earth is
the nearest you’ll ever come to heaven.
Grace,
Randy
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