Are We Going to Hell?

“Are We Going to Hell?” (Jude 20-23)

          It was about 14 years ago.  A 22 year old man, the son of one our deacons, was living with his girlfriend.  I was an unmarried, pastor fresh out of seminary, and this couple was not much younger than me.  They came to church often and made no attempt to hide their living arrangement.  Why should they?  Cohabitation was celebrated on shows like Friends and Seinfeld.  There was nothing wrong with a man and woman living together except sex outside of marriage is a complete violation of God’s way for humans, and they knew that.  Instead of enjoying the blessings God gives and waiting, they jumped the gun thinking they knew better than God.

They decided they needed to talk the pastor, so they came in.  Sitting in my office, she asked in giggle, “Are we going to Hell?” 

The issue is not an unmarried couple shacking up.  That is an example, but the issue itself is deeper.  It is a matter of sin.  They knew their choice was against God’s vision for humanity, but they did what they wanted.

Are we going to Hell?  Giggle – he can’t seriously say, “Yes.”  Nervous giggle – in our choice to live together before marriage, we know that we actively choose to reject God. 

What is Hell? 

Last week we looked briefly at universalism, the notion that all people are eventually saved and with God for eternity.  Many Christian universalists believe in Hell.  They believe the fires of Hell exist to purify those who have reject God’s grace. 

In the New Testament all people are confronted with a choice.  We have to choose to follow Jesus.  We have to decide to worship God.  We can opt to reject God’s ways but this means we separate ourselves from God.  If we die separated from God, the separation is forever.  That is what we call Hell.

In Matthew 10, Jesus is teaching his disciples.  He says, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (10:28).

In a parable in Matthew 24, Jesus compares people to slaves.   God is the master, one who is absent.  The absence refers to the time between Jesus’ crucifixion and his second coming at the end of time.  The slave who is “at work” when the master unexpectedly returns will receive the master’s blessing.  From context we know that “at work” means announcing the Kingdom of God as we love God with our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves.

However, not all slaves do this work in the master’s absence.  Some violate the master’s commands.  Sin – every sin you can think of – is how the master’s way is rejected.  When we sin, we reject God.  Jesus says the master will come and will “cut the [wicked slaves] to pieces and put [them] with the hypocrites where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (24:45-51).

In the next parable, at the beginning of Matthew 25, people are represented as bridesmaids and Jesus is the bridegroom.  The bridesmaids are to wait outside in the dark.  Thus, they need their lamps lit.  The oil for the lamps is the symbol for faith in Jesus.  The foolish bridesmaids have no oil.  The master comes and those who have oil, those who have put their faith in Christ, are invited into the wedding banquet.  The foolish ones then try to enter, but the master says, “I do not know you.”

Thus from Jesus we can say the following:

-         Hell is worse than having one’s body killed (Matthew 10:28)

-         Judgment is like being cut to pieces and put among Hypocrites where teeth are gnashed (Matthew 24:51).

-         Hell is like seeing into the Heavenly banquet, but having Jesus reject you, by saying I don’t know you (Matthew 25:12).

Additionally, in other parables, Jesus indicates the following:

-         Hell is outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth Matthew 25:30).

-         Hell is eternal fire (Matthew 25:41; also implied in Luke 16:24).

-         Hell is eternal punishment (Matthew 25:46).

We could cite many other Bible verses, but I will for the sake of time just read the following, Jude 5-7.  Jude is the short letter right before Revelation.  It is only divided by verses, not chapters.  Jude 5-7 says:

⁵ Don’t forget what happened to those people that the Lord rescued from Egypt. Some of them did not have faith, and he later destroyed them. ⁶ You also know about the angels^[a] who didn’t do their work and left their proper places. God chained them with everlasting chains and is now keeping them in dark pits until the great Day of Judgment. ⁷ We should also be warned by what happened to the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah^[b] and the nearby towns. Their people became immoral and did all sorts of sexual sins. Then God made an example of them and punished them with eternal fire.

          Two schools of thought take many of the verses related to Hell or judgment and punishment, verse found in Matthew, Luke, Jude, Revelation, and throughout the New Testament, in very different directions.  The most common reading among scholars is that the Bible teaches that the punishment for sin is everlasting torment, a punishment God imposes out of holy hatred of sin.  The great American theologian of the 18^th century, Jonathan Edwards, has written extensively on how awful Hell is and how much each one of us deserves it.  His sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” and his essay “The Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,” are examples of his writing on this topic.     

          An alternative view, one held by a minority of scholars, is the annihilationist view.  The most prominent among recent theologians to lean in this direction is English evangelical scholar John Stott.  A leader in global movements to spread the Gospel, Stott shocked many of his evangelical colleagues when he expressed that he could not tolerate the idea of eternal conscious suffering.  He found annihilation more appealing.  Annihilation is simply the idea that we suffer in Hell for a time, and then we are forever wiped out of existence.  There is no suffering because we are no more. 

          Proponents of both views refer to the same scriptures, but debate how the passages are to be understood.  For example, in Matthew 25:41 Jesus says, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”  Traditionalists triumphantly say, see, Jesus says eternal fire.  Eternal punishment.

          No!  The annihilationist responds.  Fire burns something and then it burns up.  What is eternal is the effect.  It is eternal punishment because once it has happened, there is no undoing it or going beyond it.  And they go back and forth

The debate is worth following, but I have a confession.  I do not know which is accurate.  I feel comfortable rejecting universalism based on my reading of the New Testament.  I don’t know whether proponents of eternal conscious torment or those arguing for annihilation are right.  I am sure, from my own reading of scripture, that there are eternal negative consequences for dying in sin. 

          It matters.  This conversation is important for every one of us.  In “the Justice of God in the Damnation of Sinners,” Jonathan Edwards writes

But God is a being infinitely lovely, because he hath infinite excellency and beauty. To have infinite excellency and beauty, is the same thing as to have infinite loveliness. He is a being of infinite greatness, majesty, and glory; and therefore he is infinitely honourable. He is infinitely exalted above the greatest potentates of the earth, and highest angels in heaven; and therefore he is infinitely more honourable than they. His authority over us is infinite; and the ground of his right to our obedience is infinitely strong; for he is infinitely worthy to be obeyed himself, and we have an absolute, universal, and infinite dependence upon him.
So that sin against God, being a violation of infinite obligations, must be a crime infinitely heinous, and so deserving of infinite punishment.[i]

          He is obviously a traditionalist, but what I appreciate most about Edwards is the recognition of how grave sin is.  And this takes me back to the encounter I had at the beginning of my journey as a pastor. 

“Are we going to Hell?”  The young woman asked me through an uncertain giggle.  We giggle at sin.  We laugh out loud.  We pay to see it. 

Of the top grossing films in 2012, none were rated G.  Six were rated PG.  Thirteen were rated PG-13.  And six were rated R.[ii]  The G rating, of course, is for all audiences and is typically the rating for harmless children’s movies.  What they call “adult” content is added for PG movies, and then more is added for PG-13.  You can be sure in a PG-13 movie you’ll hear some foul language and see some content that suggests either sex or violence.  And it escalates with R-rated movies and those rates NC-17.  Why is it called “adult” content, instead of morally damaging content?  Why is alcohol an “adult” beverage instead of an addictive drug that kills brain cells? 

I do not suggest that drinking a beer or seeing an R-rated movie is cause for going to Hell.  However, the New Testament condemns drunkenness. We snicker and ignore someone who questions it, especially a preacher.  Do we snicker at the New Testament? 

The New Testament demands sexual purity in word and in behavior.  We laugh at dirty jokes.

Why?

We don’t take sin seriously enough.  We love God’s grace and forgiveness and we should. Jesus went to the cross for the sins of the world.  Sin is so awful that the one who never sinned was betrayed, abandoned, humiliated in a mockery of a trial, and then beaten and crucified.  In the process, he experienced abandonment.  That’s how harsh sin is.  That’s what Jesus went through.  We treat it is as a joke. 

As Paul writes in Romans 6, “Sin pays off with death.”  To die having never repented and never called on Jesus as Lord and never received forgiveness in His name is to die in sin.  It is to die apart from God – forever.  There is no recovery once we enter forever. 

On the other hand, to repent is to turn from sin.  It is to call on Jesus as Lord and to receive His forgiveness and receive life in His name.  When we do that, He is in our lives permanently.  From that point forward, everything we do, we do in the Holy Spirit’s presence. 

          A crude joke is told.  Would I laugh if Jesus were present?  He is in Holy Spirit form. 

Would Jesus be aligned with my heart attitude if he knew my heart’s attitude?  He knows.  He lives in my heart. 

Whether my sin is murder or the nastiest language I can muster or silent affirmation of sins around me, it is sin that God abhors sin and punishes.  Sin always results in pain and loss and alienation from God.

          I have not settled the debate – Hell as a place of eternal conscious torment or Hell as a place of punishment that is followed by annihilation.  But, I know what Hell is. Hell is living with all the pain sin brings forever, with no hope of rescue from God.

          Today, we have that hope of rescue.  Today, we can turn from our sins and receive Jesus.  If you do that, it does not mean going forward you must strive to avoid sin.  Sin avoidance always fails.  We won’t stop sinning because we try hard to stop sinning.  We aren’t that strong.  We need help and we have it.  Receiving Jesus means He takes up residence in us and we live in grace, joy, and love.  We sin less and our lives are oriented away from sin when we spend our lives seeking Him.

          My prayer is that a talk about Hell will lead to us seeking rescue from sin by turning to Jesus.  We constantly seek Jesus and seek to love hurting people and introduce to Him to those who don’t know Him.  As to Hell, we do well to read Jude read verse 20-23.

²⁰ Dear friends, keep building on the foundation of your most holy faith, as the Holy Spirit helps you to pray. ²¹ And keep in step with God’s love, as you wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to show how kind he is by giving you eternal life. ²² Be helpful to^[g] all who may have doubts. ²³ Rescue any who need to be saved, as you would rescue someone from a fire. Then with fear in your own hearts, have mercy on everyone who needs it. But hate even the clothes of those who have been made dirty by their filthy deeds.

            Hate sin, love people, and share the Gospel.  Heaven or Hell is riding on it.

AMEN

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[i] http://www.jonathan-edwards.org/Justice.html

[ii] See http://www.mpaa.org/resources/3037b7a4-58a2-4109-8012-58fca3abdf1b.pdf

Heaven or Hell - A Crucial Question

Heaven or Hell – A Crucial Question (Revelation 21:3-4)

          Author Rebecca Price Janney begins her book about the way Americans think about the afterlife by looking at Mother Teresa and Princess Diana who died around the same time.  At the British embassy in Washington DC, someone set up a large placard that read, “The angels rejoice for heaven welcomes Princess Diana and Mother Teresa.”  A decade later at a concert in Princess Diana’s honor, the performer proclaimed she was “up there” listening.[i]

          How does he know Heaven is “up there?”  How does he know Princess Diana is in Heaven?  How does he know she is spending her there listening to his concert?  How does he know Princess Diana is in Heaven at all?  Or Mother Teresa for that matter. 

How dare you question her credentials!  Look at all the good she did, all the people helped.  But wait!  Don’t we say salvation by grace?  We receive it.  We don’t earn it.  How could Mother Teresa earn something that can’t be earned?  If anyone deserves Heaven, she does.  Oh?  Doesn’t it say in Romans, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (3:23)? 

Why would the person who made the placard put Princess Diana in the same category as Mother Teresa?

          Janney in her book also quotes a New York City firefighter.  Many of his buddies died on September 11, 2001.  He said, “Heaven has some fire department now.”  Not a one of us would begrudge his feelings.  We say such things when someone we admire or love dies. 

But stepping back from it, we have to ask, did he do any kind of assessment of the spiritual condition of his friends in the fire department?  Or do we just say they deserve Heaven because they sacrificed themselves?   

          I have been at funerals where the deceased was someone who did not participate in church and had not for decades.  The deceased cursed and drank, was crabby and mean, and showed no reverence for God.  At the coffin, one of his old friends standing by wipes his eyes and says, “Well, at least he’s in a better place.”  What is the basis for saying that?

          Janney writes, “Contemporary Americans tend to believe that all people go to Heaven and view the idea of Hell as repugnant.  There is a general assumption that unless someone was a child pornographer, racist, drug lord, or terrorist he or she will go to Heaven.”  Then Janney writes in parentheses, “Of course child pornographers, racists, drug lords, and terrorists also believe they are going to Heaven.”[ii]   Is there more to go on than what we feel and what hope? 

          Some in the church see it in black and white.  A friend of mine told of a funeral where he was one of the pall-bearers.  As they others carried the casket toward the burial site, the officiating pastor said, “He is in Hell.  He did not believe in Jesus and now he is in Hell.”[iii]

          In critical debates among theologians the most commonly held view of Hell going back to the earliest times of Christianity is summarized as eternal conscious torment inflicted and maintained by God.  That serves as a default position, but it is not the only view.

Pastor and author Rob Bell has an issue with this notion of Hell.  On the book jacket of his 2011 book Love Wins is the following quote.  “God love us.  God offers us everlasting life by grace, freely, through no merit on our part … unless you do not respond the right way.  Then God will torture you forever in Hell.”  Huh?

          Bell’s phrase ‘respond the right way’ means offering some form of confession that we are sinners, Jesus died for us, and we receive the forgiveness and salvation from him, because of his death on the cross. Failure to make a Christian confession lands one in Hell, eternally tortured by God.  Bell finds this unacceptable.  How can the God of love sentence nonbelievers to eternal misery in Hell?  Bell does not believe God does things that way.

          And yet, eternal, conscious torment is the traditional Christian perspective.  It is either Heaven or Hell.  They are places.  To go Heaven and avoid Hell, we need to confess our faith in Jesus.  If we don’t, then when we die, a pastor lacking sensitivity may stand at the head of our casket, point, and say, “He’s in Hell.  She’s in Hell.”  If the traditional doctrine of Hell is correct, then this pastor is speaking the truth.  But, even if the traditional doctrine is not right, one thing is certain.  All of us die.  Every single one of us dies.

          What happens then?  Would you like to have legitimate hope that you exist beyond death and your existence beyond death is positive?  And what about friends, people we love who are not in Church, who are not Christians?  They die too. What happens to those not following Jesus? 

          We need help in this conversation.  List to Revelation 20:12-15.

          Revelation, 20:11-15.

¹² And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books. ¹³ And the sea gave up the dead that were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and all were judged according to what they had done. ¹⁴ Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire; ¹⁵ and anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

            The Bible says something happens; we are judged according to our works. All people are sinners and God absolutely hates sin.  In the book of Genesis, God rains fire from heaven and consumes two immoral cities – Sodom and Gomorrah.  That’s how God feels about sin.  God is depicted as a God of love in the Bible, but God is also a God of wrath.   That is unmistakable. 

          However, all who are in Christ are declared righteous.  Our sins are forgiven and no longer count against us.  So when Revelation says the dead will be judged according to their works, we keep in mind that Jesus’ followers are judged according to Jesus’ works. 

          All the dead of human history– billions of people - are gathered.  The book of life is opened, the names are read.  Death and Hades are thrown into a lake of fire.  These conditions will no longer exist. In the eternal Kingdom of God’s death will be a meaningless word because the concept will have been consumed in the lake of fire.  But not only death.  Verse 15:  “Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life is thrown into the lake of fire.” 

What is it like in that lake of fire?  Some theologians insist it means you’re consumed forever, annihilated.  That’s what fire does.  Others insist that the fire is metaphor and you’ll be awake for eternity suffering as badly as if you constantly felt the burn of flames on your flesh.  A third position is that that the fire purifies.  All the corruption is burned off, one comes out clean, and then finds his name in the book of life. 

In this series, we will look more at these three doctrines of Hell – Annihilationist, Eternal Torment, and Refining which leads all people to salvation.   For now, we simply acknowledge that all people die.  And all people, per Revelation, go through the judgment.  Death itself ends up in a lake of fire. And those not written in the book of life do too. 

In his letter to the church in Thessalonica, the Apostle Paul addresses the issue of death to those who are followers of Jesus.  The Thessalonians were sure of eternal life with God in Christ.  Notice I am not saying they necessarily thought they’d go to Heaven when they died.  The concept of Heaven many have been taught in Churches is not exactly what the New Testament emphasizes.  In the New Testament we read more about living eternally.  The Thessalonians thought that because Jesus has risen from death they would never die.

What we are actually promised is we will join him in resurrection.  Only dead people are resurrected.  When members started dying, the Thessalonians suffered a devastating crisis of faith.  Some of their brothers died, and Jesus had not come back.  What did it mean?

Paul writes in 1^st Thessalonians 4:13.

¹³ But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters,^[g] about those who have died,^[h] so that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. ¹⁴ For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have died.^[i] 15 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will by no means precede those who have died.^[j] 16 For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel’s call and with the sound of God’s trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. ¹⁷ Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever. ¹⁸ Therefore encourage one another with these words.

          Paul lays out the entire plan.  First, when we grieve our beloved after they have died, our grief is soaked in hope.  Jesus, the Resurrected One, will “bring with him those who have died.”  There will be the archangel’s call and the sound of God’s trumpet.  Then, the Lord descends from Heaven.  The dead in Christ rise.  People who died centuries ago are reconstituted in resurrected bodies and rise to Christ.  Can we picture this?  When we get to end of verse 17, Heaven has come to us.  The promise on which we stand is that we are with Jesus forever.

          Why did Paul write this? So the believers who faced death could encourage one another.  He thought the best thing he could tell them, of all the truths he could share, was they would be with Jesus forever. 

          Hell is horrifying.  I feel myself a character in horror movie.  I feel every awful thing in my bones and I cannot get out.  When that foreboding begins to wash over me, I retreat to the Gospel.

          That’s what Paul is telling us to do. Trust in Jesus.  The faith we have in Him assures us we will be with him.  Whatever Heaven is like, however different than we have maybe been taught to believe, the promise is we will be with Jesus.  The only way our discussion of this topic will be spiritually healthy and helpful is if we trust in Him.  We trust Him with our future and our present. 

          Some believers think the threat of Hell is the best way to motivate nonbelievers to consider turning to Jesus, but not me.  For me, the promise of life with Christ is the drive for sharing faith.  That life begins when one turns to Jesus and continues when we die and then enter the resurrection. 

          When we conclude this series on the afterlife, it will be fine with me if you don’t hold all the same theological positions as I do.  Whether you and I agree or disagree on doctrines of Heaven and Hell, I believe your life and mine will be utterly blessed today – not only in a distant afterlife but also today, right now when we learn how to live in complete trust. We trust Jesus with our very lives and in the smallest bits of our lives and in every bit of our lives. 

          In that we begin to understand and live in the world described in Revelation 21.  There, John sees into Heaven. 

           ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

“See, the home^[a] of God is among mortals.
He will dwell^[b] with them;
they will be his peoples,^[c]
and God himself will be with them;^[d]
4 he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”

⁵ And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true.” ⁶ Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water as a gift from the spring of the water of life. 

            If we are in Christ, forever begins today.  The more we trust Him, follow and serve Him, and love in His name, the truer our experience of Him with us becomes and the clearer our picture of Heaven is.  It will be familiar even before we get there because we have been walking with Him all along.

AMEN

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[i] Rebecca Price Janney (2009), Who Goes There: A Cultural History of Heaven and Hell, p.9.

[ii] Ibid, p.10.

[iii] As told to me by Jim Greenlee.