Hell

Hell: This is a topic I have avoided for some time, but one that I am finally coming to grips with. As a compassionate, somewhat intelligent Christian, I find myself feeling the need to defend Hell. But, in a lot of ways, Hell is becoming either more defensible or less needing of defense so that I can think more clearly about it. Those who reject God their whole lives consequently do several things. First, they mock the God who created them, who sustained their lives, who gave them every good thing they ever knew, who created love and every attribute or emotion that makes life worth living. They mock him by ignoring Him completely or by admitting that He exists but refusing to trust in Him. They ruin their own chance to be a part of a perfect relationship and to experience true emotional and spiritual joy. If it is sick and wrong to hurt or attack a human being – an imperfect, often un-loyal, selfish being who may even be in error in the situation – how much more sick and wrong is it to ignore or belittle the only One who gives you everything that you care about and who loves you unconditionally?

So rejecting God is an act of mocking him as well. Second, though, by rejecting God, they exalt themselves to deity. Obviously, anyone who really walked around calling himself a god would be considered a nut-job. Yet, those who refuse to acknowledge the only one who deserves the title God imply their self-sufficiency from Him. Independence and self-sufficiency can be good or bad depending on your relationship to the person from whom you’re becoming independent and self-sufficient. For a newly married man, it is perfectly good to become independent and self-sufficient from his parents. On the other hand, no one would deny the ridiculousness of an eight year old declaring himself independent and self-sufficient from his parents, much less if the child was two. We all like to think we can fix our own problems, pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, and steer the course of our own lives. Thinking of ourselves in this manner is little more than ascribing omniscience (being all-knowing) and omnipotence (being all-powerful) to our own lives. In short, we make ourselves deity. But, when we do so, we act like that toddler declaring himself independent and self-sufficient.

A third important consequence of living out of relationship with God is that all of God’s commands are broken. People like to suggest the idea that God might be punishing the wrong people with Hell, in effect sending innocent people to eternal damnation. However, scripture teaches us that none are righteous and that even the best person’s good deeds are worthless to God. Some might say, “Ya, but what if someone kept all of the commandments in the Bible and missed just one, is it fair to send that person to Hell?” The appropriate response to that person is this, “James says that once you become a transgressor, you’re a transgressor. It’s sort of like virginity. Once it is gone you cannot get it back. So, even if someone could live to the age of 20 without ever sinning, once he sinned, he became a sinner.” Also, Jesus said that all of the OT law could be summed up in the commands to love God and love others. Maybe a very moral, charitable unbeliever accomplishes the act of loving others quite well. But, if he refuses to acknowledge and trust in God, he misses the number one command in all of scripture: to love God. Therefore, even his humanitarian efforts become worthless because those actions did not point people to a relationship with the one that would offer them the utmost good.

In light of these three things – mocking God, setting yourself up as deity, and breaking all of God’s commands – Hell seems to be a bit more acceptable as a punishment. However, there is another way to look at it. Those who have no desire for a relationship with God experience his passive judgment their entire lives. In other words, he judges them by giving them exactly what they want. They want none of God, so they get none of God. Only those of us who have a relationship with God can really realize what they are missing. So, if a person lived like that, wanting nothing to do with God, does it not almost make sense that when they die, they go to a realm that is God-less? In a sense, then, Hell is God’s ultimate act of passive wrath/judgment in that he gives people exactly what they want for all of eternity. Unfortunately, they don’t really understand the implications of what they want because the moment they lose God, they lose the chance of joy, love, peace, security, and any good thing they could imagine. How could you describe the terror of such a place? Well, Jesus and Biblical writers chose to portray it as a place of fire, darkness, hungry worms, weeping and gnashing teeth, and so on. These images try to make a single point: Hell is really bad! It is a place that allows the Holy God to maintain His Holiness by punishing those who mock him, make themselves out to be deity, and break His commands. His wrath leads to active punishment for those who refuse and reject Him. But, Hell is also the natural result of choosing to live out of relationship with God. It is the passive punishment of ultimately allowing the lost what they have sought their entire lives. The great thing about the story is that God did something about Hell. He did not sit back and expect man to do something to justify himself. Instead, He took on flesh and died to provide the opportunity to experience all that is good in Him, including Heaven (which is simply the unfiltered presence of God). What a joy in the midst of darkness.

-Matt