No Hell or—Hell, No!
I grew up in a day, and in a church, where preaching on hell was common. Many churches today never preach on this subject, and this is indefensible.
If hell is a real place, and if many people will go there and stay there, saying nothing about hell is one of the least loving things anyone can do.
As a little boy, I loved Jesus! I would read bible stories about him in my bunkbed every day. And yet the greatest motivation I had to be saved was my fear of hell.
Warnings are legitimate, if the danger is real. To dismiss this warning is the biggest mistake anyone can make!
Rejecting the Teaching on Hell
There are those who reject the doctrine of hell by insisting there is no hell. A.W. Pink pointed out that “many turn away from a vision of God’s wrath as though they were called upon to look at a blotch in the divine character, or some blot upon divine government.”1
J.I. Packer noted “that the subject of divine wrath has become taboo in modern society.”2 And we’re not just talking about scoffers and scorners who think this way; some of the saints of God think this way.
There are some who try to dismiss hell as a medieval superstition, not realizing that the doctrine of hell preceded the founding of the Church by a thousand years.
In her Introductory Papers on Dante, Dorothy L. Sayers wrote: “The imagery of the undying worm and the unquenchable fire derives not from medieval superstition, but originally from the Prophet Isaiah, and it was Christ who emphatically used it.”3
Others contend that the God of the Old Testament was a God of vengeance but that when we come to the New Testament, God, having improved his mood, became more civil, deciding to present himself as a God of love.
However, this assertion is not at all in accord with biblical facts. Addressing the doctrine of hell, Dorothy Sayers wrote:
It confronts us in the oldest and least “edited” of the Gospels: It is implicit in many of the most familiar parables and is explicit in many more: It bulks far larger in the teaching than one realizes, until one reads the Evangelists through instead of merely picking out the most comfortable texts: One cannot get rid of it without tearing the New Testament to tatters. We cannot repudiate hell without altogether repudiating Christ.4
As C.S. Lewis put it, “The tenderest lips the world has ever known did in fact speak of the shut door, the outer darkness, and the unquenchable fire.”
In his book, Why I Am Not a Christian, Bertrand Russell set forth his objections to Christ, saying, “There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that he believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.”5
Russell then quoted several verses that prove Jesus did indeed believe in hell, and with that Russell rested his case.
Look carefully at his quote and you’ll notice that this esteemed professor consulted his mind only … and then told us what he feels.
Feels? Like most moderns, Russell considered the doctrine of hell too absurd, and really too immoral, to contemplate.
Though he was a philosopher of considerable renown, Russell offered no reasoning to support his conclusion. To him, the jury of public opinion could only rule one way! So why bother to refute?
Coming to the same conclusion, mushy minds have postulated a God as gentle as a lamb and as peace-loving as a dove.
There isn’t going to be any hell, they sneer, dismissing this idea with a wave of the hand and the turning of their back.
Commenting on this assertion, J.C. Ryle, the nineteenth-century Victorian preacher, said:
… some do not believe there is any hell at all. They think it impossible there can be such a place. They call it inconsistent with the mercy of God. They say it is too awful an idea to be really true. The devil, of course, rejoices in the views of such people. They help his kingdom mightily. They are preaching up his old favorite doctrine, “Ye shall not surely die.”6
G.D. Watson wrote: “If the revelation of hell is not true, the revelation of heaven is not true … if I cannot trust what God says about damnation, neither can I trust what he says about salvation.”7
Satan’s false comfort in Eden is false still, because “yes, God has said!”
When considering what God said, we learn that Scripture describes hell in many ways. First, it is—
A Place of Devastation
Contrary to the “cheap grace,” “easy believism” view of God that envisions his dealings with sin as little more than a gentle scolding or as a furrowed brow conveying mild displeasure, the Bible depicts final judgment in terms of utter devastation.
Of course, this depiction hardly coincides with the modern mindset! According to their thinking, judgment—especially final and endless judgment—is wholly inconsistent with a God of mercy, love, and patience.
Therefore, the popular preachers of our day dismissively set aside the subject of hell by calling it homiletical terrorism, choosing instead to become the smiling emcee of happy-talk chatter from the pulpit.
But those who love mercy must come to see that at the same cross where Heaven swung open its gate to receive pardoned sinners, the pit of hell readied its bloody jaws to snatch those who refused the pardon.
God’s choice in the matter? No hell. Their choice? Hell, no!
These people just can’t believe that the shepherd with the flaked-out lamb on his shoulder is going to do any harm to them.
It is significant, though, that final judgment is spoken of in Scripture as “the wrath of the Lamb” (Revelation 6:16).
Whoa! Who would ever think of a fierce and ferocious lamb? A lion, maybe; a tiger, perhaps—but a lamb? The idea of a lamb breathing out slaughter and becoming the terror of the countryside is unthinkable!
But through this very imagery, Heaven is telling us that there is another side to Jesus besides the “gentle-as-a-lamb” qualities many have been counting on. Because one day, when “the cup of iniquity” is full (Genesis 15:16) and all that stored up wrath is unleashed (Romans 2:5), Jesus is going to be the last person the damned are going to want to meet!
Thomas Watson, the seventeenth-century Puritan preacher, said, “God is the sweetest friend, but the worst enemy.”
One can only imagine what God’s fury toward those disregarding his Word will be like. Especially disturbing to many is the fact that this fury can’t be reduced, avoided, or blocked!
Revelation 14:10 speaks of those who must drink the wine of God’s fury—to the bottom! This is a picturesque way of saying that God’s fury will churn and burn inside them to their everlasting torment.
The whole world should be put on notice, then: The thunderbolts of wrath will find its target! The ignited fires of hell will inflict its torture! Hell—a place of devastation!
Hell is also spoken of in Scripture as—
A Place of Lamentation.
Matthew 13:42 says there will be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
There are many reasons for crying in hell. Giving us insight into this, the Bible reports how the rich man, Dives, lifted up his eyes, being in “torments” (Luke 16:24). Did you get that? The plural is used.
The multidimensional suffering in hell will afflict every dimension of life—spiritual, mental, emotional, social, and physical. Full awareness, and ceaseless suffering, are indicated by this mention of lifted eyes, as opposed to life mercifully ended with the eyes closing at death.
Some think of hellfire as a metaphor for a burning conscience. But upon examining Scripture’s strong emphasis on the physical, wherein the whole planet gets redeemed and our physical bodies get glorified, it makes sense to conclude that hell, heaven’s counterpart, will also be physical.
Matthew 10:28 speaks of one who will destroy the soul and the body.
Who can deny that the devil has made a career of inflicting physical bodies while he and we have been on this earth?
So, in some excruciating, unrelenting way the torture and torment of hell will target not only the mental but also the physical. Indeed, in that time, and in that place, the pain inflicted will be without any relief!
One can only imagine what the Great White Throne Judgment scene is going to be like.
With no lawyers to dazzle a jury, no witnesses to spin their stories, no legal loopholes offering relief, the condemned will stand before the Judge of all the earth all alone—their hearts pounding, their eyes flashing fright, their feet bolted by motionless shock, unable to find a way of escape.
And then, after hearing this final and irrevocable verdict, gasps will let loose, tears will flow, anguish will convulse, but words will fail.
Imagine the scene: faces blotched with emotion, eyes red with remorse, bodies quaking in fear at the precise moment it has just been determined that immediately and eternally hell is going to be their final and eternal abode.
What will also add pain to these hot, scalding tears flowing down the cheeks of the condemned is the sudden realization of how willing they were to be deceived.
Suddenly, they will remember the pleadings of a mother, the praying of a father, the preaching of a pastor, the persistence of a friend, the presence of the Spirit, and the teachings of the Bible.
At which point the prosecutor within will fire out convicting questions, “How could I have turned away from such good news? What madness, what insanity, caused me to do such a thing?”
Pascal observed, “It will be one of the confusions of the damned to see that they are condemned by their own reason, by which they claimed to condemn the Christian religion.”8
G.D. Watson wrote: “Oh! To think of the awful horror of just simply devouring yourself all through eternity … cursing yourself, tearing your hair out, saying, ’What a fool I was, what a fool I was, what a fool I was!’”9
Devastation, lamentation, but hell will also be, the Bible says—
A Place of Condemnation
The inhabitants of hell will be worthy of nothing but contempt—even in their own eyes!
To underscore this condemnation, Gehenna, the Greek word foreshadowing hell, refers to a place outside Jerusalem that became the town’s garbage heap. To quote Jesus on this subject, it was a place where the worm didn’t die, and the fire was never quenched (Mark 9:48).
So visualize: the crawling maggots, the smoldering fires, the horrible stench. Then ask yourself how it would feel to be viewed as trash, as something of no use, no value, and no worth?
In this life, one can hush the voice of conscience so it will trouble no more! The Bible calls this condition a “seared conscience” (I Timothy 4:2) or a “shipwrecked conscience” (I Timothy 1:19).
It is a sobering truth, that once one’s conscience ceases to function, what once was deemed horrifying and disgusting may in the end become a considered and welcomed option.
But here’s something the evildoer didn’t know.
Once the devil gets a person where he wants him—a fellow consignee to the horrors of hell—suddenly the alarm of conscience will go off again!
Eyes will finally see!
Ears will finally hear!
The truth will finally be known! Only—it is too late.
This is why, in Dante’s vision, these words appear over the gates of hell, “All hope abandon, ye who enter here.”
And can there ever be a place in hell hotter than this?
G.D. Watson describes the scene as one “with nothing to do but think and think, and think of the past with remorse, of the future with revenge, and of God with added terror.”10
It is a wicked irony—isn’t it? —this implosion of rejection! Because the spirit that rejects everything that doesn’t please self ends up by rejecting self.
As C.S. Lewis put it, “The last enemy of incurable egoism is one’s own ego.” In hell, a person becomes ex-man. The grumbler becomes a grumble. But it gets even worse.
The Bible also describes hell as—
A Place of Separation
Banished to the outer darkness! Forsaken! Forgotten! Never to see good, God, or glory again! Deliberately and eternally abandoned!
In his book, The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis pictured hell a place of astronomical distance, its citizens being so detestable in one another’s eyes they want to live light-years apart.
In Jean Paul Sartre’s play, No Exit, the principle is the same, only the living arrangement is different: completely selfish people forced to live together—in the same room, with a proximity promoting utter disgust—and there is no way out!
Today, when some people hear about the awful torment of being separated from God, they suspect the preacher is guilty of exaggeration. For having lived their lives without the slightest prayer, these people never experienced separation from God as a torment. To the contrary, they enjoyed themselves immensely!
As Helmut Thielicke put it:
“… if they give any thought at all to divine things, it is at best a regret that there are people who are plagued by the fear of an imagined hell or lifted by a (vain) longing for heaven, who huddle between gloomy walls on Sunday instead of letting the Spring breeze waft about their ears.”11
Of course, a pleasant time is possible during a state of deception. If one doesn’t contemplate the next life, there’s no anxiety.
So, with this myopic focus in another direction, we become mice chasing the cheese the world puts before us—chasing, chasing! chasing! Running with all the enthusiasm of those greyhounds chasing the mechanical rabbit they’ll never get. And should they by some quirk of circumstances get that rabbit, what could they possibly do with it?
C.S. Lewis has one of his characters say, “The safest road to hell is the gradual one—the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.”
Yet this is the road many people are on. Day follows day with no thought about heaven or hell. To them, the next step, the next day, seems no different than the ones before. The immediate gets their attention; the eternal does not. And then time runs out.
Wanting people to come to terms with the end of their earthly existence, A.W. Tozer said:
“… I remind you of that day when one of those wonderful and handsome and modern vehicles will pull up to your front door. Two gray-faced men will get out with a basket and will lug you out—away from your radio and television and electric stoves and refrigerators and sweepers and massagers—they will lug you out and someone else will prepare for your funeral.”12
What then? Please tell me. What then?
Hell—a shockingly horrible place!
A place of devastation where the full fury of God’s pent-up wrath is unloosed!
A place of lamentation, where the chests of inhabitants seethe and sigh like a fiery furnace!
A place of condemnation, where each person is filled with a terrible self-loathing!
A place of separation, where all that is good is gone and yet in some tortured way is intensely desired!
Sam Jones, a nineteenth-century Methodist evangelist, said, “The biggest fool is the man who spends his probationary existence in arguing that there is no hell, and then lies down in hell forever, realizing that there is one.”13
Samuel Brengle, a contemporary of Jones, said that “the sinner who is lost and banished to outer darkness cannot blame God, nor charge him with indifference to his misery, since Christ, by tasting death for him, flung wide open the gateway of escape. That the condemned definitely refused to enter in will be clear in their memory forever .…”
Matthew 27:25, in the New Living Translation, reports that when it came to crucifying Jesus, all the people yelled, “We will take responsibility for his death—we and our children!” Other translations say: “His blood be upon us and our children!” They were that defiant, that brazen.
Jesus wanted no hell for them, but they responded to his offer by saying, “hell, no!"
Notes:
1. Arthur W. Pink, Gleanings in the Godhead, (Chicago, Moody Press, 1975), p.76.
2. J.I. Packer, Knowing God, (Downers Grove, InterVarsity Press, 1973), p.134.
3. Dorothy Sayers, Introductory Papers on Dante, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1954), p.44.
4. Ibid., p.44.
5. Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian, (New York, Simon and Schuster, 1957), p.17.
6. J.C. Ryle, “Fire! Fire!” located under Sermon Texts on the website sermonindex.net
7. G.D. Watson, Love Abounding, (Cincinnati, Ohio, God’s Revivalist Press, n. d.),pp.144-145.
8. Pascal, Pensees, (New York, Washington Square Press, 1965), p.164.
9. G.D. Watson, Love Abounding, p.161.
10. G.D. Watson, The Seven Overcomeths, (Salem, Ohio, Schmul Publishing Company, 2007), p.130.
11. Helmut Thiliecke, I Believe, (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968), p.126.
12. A.W. Tozer, Christ the Eternal Son, (Harrisburg, PA., Christian Publications, 1982), p.51.
13. Clyde. E. Fant, Jr. and William M. Pinson, Jr., 20 Centuries of Great Preaching, Volume Six, (Waco, Word Books, 1971), p.349.
