One of the hardest teachings of Christianity is that of heaven and hell. Of course, the heaven part is not problematic for most of us. But hell…
The reality of Hell, and the fate of those who do not know Jesus, has been a stumbling block to people in and out of the church for years. The problem usually is stated something like this: I can’t believe in a God who would send someone to hell just because he doesn’t believe in Jesus.
These people can’t believe that God is so unloving and capricious.
I don’t either.
The God I know doesn’t send people to hell because they don’t know Jesus.
People go to hell because they sin, not because they don’t believe in Jesus.
However, God loves us so much he became flesh (HE became flesh—Jesus isn’t “other” than God) and died for us to give us a way to be forgiven, while at the same time maintaining his own righteousness by not just “winking” at our sin. He paid the penalty.
But many of us just don’t believe this. We want the reality and hope of heaven without the fear of hell. But the same Bible that teaches about heaven teaches about hell. We don’t get to pick what we like and throw out the rest.
What’s the difference? Can’t we believe in heaven and love the Lord and not worry about hell? If I believe in Jesus I don’t need to worry about hell so what’s the problem?
Here’s the problem. If I love as Jesus loves, I can’t just say “I have mine, I don’t care about you” (I’m with the Lord so I’m ok either way, hope you’re ok). If hell is real—as scripture plainly teaches—and if I care about someone, I do something. I tell them. I warn them. I offer them an alternative.
If I don’t do that, there are really only two explanations. Either I don’t care if that person goes to hell, or I really don’t believe in Hell.
in Christ,
Randy Christian
Cari says
To play devil's advocate, specifically where & what does the Bible teach about hell? I read Brian McLaren's book "The Last Word and the Word After That" awhile back and it really challenged me in my thinking about hell based on actual scripture vs. what I'd always been taught (i.e. doctrine). Not that I completely agree with the book, but it raised questions I'd never thought about before. Like how we interpret phrases like "gnashing of teeth", etc. Anyway, I don't disagree with you necessarily. But I definitely think it might not be as black & white as I've always thought either.
rchristian says
Cari,
I’ve never been comfortable advocating for Satan, but I’m good with taking the opposing thought for discussion.
A complete answer to your question (exactly what does the Bible teach about hell?) would be a book, not a post. However, I think there are several points that are hard to argue with:
1. our word “hell” refers to several Biblical terms: Hades, Sheol, Gehenna among others, and what God has revealed about hell has increased over time (progressive revelation)
2. hell is real—it is referred to too often to believe otherwise
3. hell is a really bad place—seems absurd to put it that way, nevertheless the one common thread to all the references to hell is that it is basically the worst we could imagine (examples: fire—Matthew 5:22; a garbage dump [gehenna] Matthew 23:15; a pit [falling] Psalm 5515). In fact, I think it would be fair to say that both heaven and hell are described with imagery in scripture something like this: think of the best thing you could possibly imagine—heaven is better than that. Think of the worst thing you could possibly imagine—hell is worse than that.
4. hell is a terrible place and is a place of punishment (Matthew 5:29-30; Matthew 8:11-12; Matthew 10:28 to cite a few passages). Jesus himself (in each of these passages) uses the threat of hell to motivate people (something many contemporary preachers seem to feel is beneath us).
Roy Bunch says
Haven't been here in a while, but always enjoy reading. Makes me want to read Love Wins (saw that Josh had mentioned that he read it recently too). Besides that, I've often asked the question (at least quietly) whether or not we really believe (in Jesus, Salvation, Heaven, Hell – the whole package) if we don't talk to our firends and neighbors and family members about Jesus when we know they are not believers. We either don't believe it, or we do believe it and just don't care enought about them. Then I was sparked to think of the interaction betweeen belief and virtue. I may seriously and deeply believe, but my virtue -the strength of my courage and love – inhibit my actions. Still pondering.
jhr says
Is the word Lord a Greek or Hebrew word? Why is the male gender always used when referring to God?
rchristian says
The word "Lord" is an English word. It is used to translate words from both Greek and Hebrew (in Greek, typically the word "kurios"; and in Hebrew, typically the word "adonai", though there are other words in both languages which can also be translated "lord"). As for the use of the male gender, the short answer is that the scriptures typically refer to God as male (God the Father and God the Son being the two most obvious examples). Personally, I don't believe this is intended to communicate that God is limited by gender as we are. I suspect this is simply a literary convenience since God chose to preserve portions of his communication with us in written form. There are portions of scripture which refer to what I have called the "maternal nature" of God, where God uses maternal imagery to refer to himself.
jhr says
what is the difference between metaphor and fact? Do you make the distinction?
rchristian says
Fact is a statement of reality. Metaphor is a figure of speech intended to help a person understand an aspect of that reality. However, since it is a figure of speech, it not intended as a statement of reality. While there are (in my opinion rare) instances where it is not immediately obvious whether a statement is metaphor or fact, in most cases this not the case. In the case of heaven and hell, the metaphorical nature of the scriptural descriptions becomes obvious both by the context and by the fact that different statements make perfect sense as metaphors but are contradictory if taken as "fact". An example would be the pictures of hell (e.g. a garbage dump, a bottomless pit, a lake of fire). These are different, and are obviously representative of things which we consider horrible (the garbage dump imagery from scripture goes infinitely further than our experience of a garbage dump). The "fact" (statement of reality) is that hell exists (the metaphors are meaningless otherwise) and we don't want to be there.