Is the Bible’s teaching – and Christians’ belief in – Hell, a valid reason to reject the Christian faith?
Just in case you were wondering, here is “Gentle Jesus, Meek and Mild’” teaching on hell:
“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)
“As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 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. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Matthew 13:40-42)
“…if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, where, ‘the worms that eat them do not die, and the fire is not quenched.’” (Mark 9:47-48)
There is not doubt that Jesus both believed in and warned people about God’s judgement, and the finality of the final Judgement which for some will result in ‘Hell’.
There are a number of popular objections to hell, among which are:
- If God is love, how could he send people to hell?
- How can eternal damnation be a fair punishment for my relatively small mistakes?
- I know plenty of Muslims, Buddhists and Atheists who are decent people. What should they be sent to Hell just for not believing in Jesus?
- A loving God wouldn’t use fear as a motivation to be good – even if some of his followers do!
- The whole idea is primitive and superstitious.
A number of objections to Hell are simply a rejection of a wrong understanding of what Hell is, based more on Medieval mythology than on the Bible.
We could say that, from the Bible’s perspective, Hell is God’s final response to remorseless or unrepentant sin. So, our view of Hell will be shaped by our view of sin.
It makes sense that many in the modern West have a problem with the idea of God’s judgement, because our general view of humanity is that we are OK – people are essentially good (or at least neutral), and we occasionally make mistakes or act selfishly – but no-one in themselves is bad enough to warrant hell. From this perspective, Christians are seen as harsh in believing in such a thing as Hell.
So, a correct understanding of the biblical concept of sin will enable us to also get Hell into perspective:
1. Sin is essentially the rejection of a relationship.
Popularly, sin is thought of as naughty things we do, which are tallied up and used to assess whether we are good enough to get into heaven. This is not a Christian idea.
These sinful actions are simply symptoms or expressions of the state of the heart – a heart that has no interest in being in a right relationship with God. God created us to not only know about Him, but to be in personal relationship with Him – in which we experience His loving care for us, and we live lived that honour Him. Instead, we turn to things in this world thinking they will provide for us what only God can give. Jesus described this as ‘slavery to sin’ – the things we think will fulfill us ultimately become our master, because we invest ourselves in them instead of God.
The Christian ‘Heaven’ is knowing this relationship with God not in part, but in full; not by faith, but by sight. The true pleasure of ‘Heaven’ is not being in a nice place, but in knowing God face-to-face. By contrast, the pain of Hell – described in pictorial language as being like fire and darkness and being eaten by worms – is the pain of absolute exclusion from God’s favour and goodness, with no longer any hope of release.
If we do not want a relationship with God in this life, why should we think we will want it for eternity? In that sense, Hell is God handing us over to that which we have chosen – life in the absence of His favourable presence. What most people don’t realise is that in this life, God is continually giving good things to us – whether we acknowledge or thank Him or not. All the pleasures and joys of life are gifts from God, designed to demonstrate His kindness and patience. Hell will be the removal of everything that is good – and it will be what we have chosen. As Tim Keller says,
“Hell is the freely chosen, eternal skid row of the universe.”
2. Sin is personal – and it’s against God.
Sin isn’t breaking a set of abstract and arbitrary rules. Because God’s Law is His law, to break it is a personal offence against Him. We all know that justice demands that the penalty fit the crime. This is reflected in our own justice system, where penalties vary depending on the seriousness of the crime. If sin is just breaking a few rules, then eternal punishment in Hell is certainly unfair. However, if sin is actually treason against the Creator and Ruler of the universe, this puts Hell into perspective. God is infinite in worth, and deserves the worship and honour of every creature. Sin is essentially saying that He is worthless compared to all the other things that we place great importance on – not the least our own desire to be autonomous and accountable to no-one but ourselves. Such an act of treason deserves a penalty that fits the crime – this fitting penalty is exclusion from God’s favour forever.
We also need a proper perspective on God’s character:
3. God’s anger shows His love.
We would all agree that anger against injustice or suffering of innocent people is good. We would also think it strange and heartless for someone to not be angry when their loved ones are hurt. Why then do we not want to allow God to be angry at sin and evil which brings destruction to the creatures whom He loves? It is because God is Love that he is angry with anything or anyone who harms the objects of His love – true justice is ultimately the expression of love. We very often want God to bring justice for us when things don’t go the way we think they should for us, yet we don’t like the thought that God could bring justice on behalf of those whom we have hurt or offended. The fact that God acts against evil and injustice demonstrates His desire to see justice for those He loves.
God is ‘triune’ – three persons existing in the eternal unity of the one God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. This means that God has the right to be angry towards those who dishonour him, without him being selfish and insecure as human beings generally do when we are offended or hurt. The Father is angry at those who reject his Son; the Son is angry at those who dishonour his Father, and so on. So even if it were possible (and it isn’t) that our sin caused no harm whatsoever to another human being, it would still be right and good and loving that God is angry towards us.
A God who looked at the sin and evil and destruction in the world and the human race, and then did nothing in response would be a far, far worse god, unworthy of our worship, than one who acts decisively to judge evil and bring it to an end.
4. God has mercy on sinners.
We may feel that God is harsh when we read about his judgements and about Hell. However, God’s speaking about Hell is not vindictive, but gracious. He tell us of His judgement as a warning – calling people to turn from sin to Him so that they do not need to face this judgement:
“Son of man, say to the Israelites, ‘This is what you are saying:“Our offences and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?”’ Say to them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel? ’(Ezekiel 33:10-11)
We can know this not only because of passages like this in the Bible, but by what the Bible tells us about Jesus. Jesus stated very clearly that the primary reason He came was to deal with the fact that human beings deserve Hell – by going there himself on our behalf:
Jesus called them together and said, “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45)
Jesus is teaching his followers about what it means to live truly as a human being – in humbleness and service to others. He states that he himself is the ideal example of this, in that while he is God’s chosen King (Son of Man), he came to serve. The way he served was to ‘give his life as a ransom’ – in other words, he gave his life and faced Hell himself, to provide a way for us to not face Hell.
How can we charge God with harshness and injustice when the very thing we deserve to face, He Himself has faced for us?
If we say something like ‘I’m not bad enough to go to hell,’ or ‘I know plenty of good people who don’t believe in Jesus – why should they go to hell?’ then we are saying essentially that what is required for a person to not go to Hell is their good works – their moral performance. This is actually more exclusive than the Christian view which says that no matter who you are or how ’bad’ your sin is, grace is available to the worst of sinners; entry into ‘Heaven’ is not based on how good I am, but on how good Jesus has been for me.
A much more exclusive approach is to say, ‘People who are ‘good enough’ should not be sent to Hell.’ This sets us up for elitism – the presumption that we in ourselves are able to achieve a goodness that deserves God’s eternal favour, where the good are in and the bad are out. It means that we store up our record of good, and then God somehow owes us and gives us Heaven. The Gospel says that those who think they are good enough for God demonstrate they are not – because we were never made to be ‘good enough,’ but to live in dependence upon Him. Rather, those who recognise that they are, and never will be good enough, and instead rely on God’s grace and mercy shown in Jesus who came to rescue us from Hell, are welcomed.
This is an offer not just for those who are good enough, but for anyone who will simply trust him.
(Some of these ideas are stolen from Tim Keller, but since he most likely got them from somewhere else, I won’t bother referencing them in detail…)
New Jerusalem 