Don't Forget About Hell
Few professing Christians reject the biblical doctrine (teaching) of hell outright. Some consciously minimize it. And despite how frequently Jesus taught about it, the rest of us would rather not think too long or hard about it. We’d rather be dreaming about the wonders of heaven. In either case, there is serious risk of losing the doctrine and along with it, some meaningful truths Christians enjoy.
In no particular order, here are five (good) things we lose, if we lose the doctrine of hell.
1. Perfect Justice. Without hell, sin and injustice go unpunished. Some of the most otrocious acts of evil have been performed in private or have simply gone unpunished by earthly authorities. Even when sin is punished on this side of eternity, it is not man that the sinner has offended most, but an eternally holy God. All sin is ultimately a violation of God’s law, not man’s. Therefore, God must and shall provide perfect, divine justice for all wrongs done, whether against God or those who bear His image. Without hell, we would have no hope for perfect justice and would be left to trust in a government filled with people just as human and, often times, as wicked as the perpetrator. We would be left to vent our vengeance in the hopes of getting all the justice we could in our own strength and by all means tolerable. But with God, no sin goes unpunished, no exceptions. Every solitary sin will be punished and paid for, either by Christ on the cross or the sinner for eternity in God’s hell. This is to ensure that in God’s heaven, all wrongs will be made right. There will be no more sin, no more loss, no more pain and no more tears - forever.
2. A Great Salvation. Without a right understanding of hell, we cannot fully grasp how gracious God has been to forgive and save us. This is where a certain acknowledgement of hell is required for salvation. After all, what are we saved from, except God’s just punishment of our sin - which He has described as eternal conscious torment in hell. The basic premise is that we deserve hell. And yet, despite what my sin deserved, He made a way for sinners to repent of their sinful ways, be forgiven of their sin and declared righteous and reconciled to God. The more, then, we understand hell, the more we see salvation as a great gift of grace and the more we are humble before both God and our fellow man. The truth is, it ought to amaze us that God saves even one. He is not obligated to save any, but He is a benevolent God who mercifully saves sinners. And we love Him, in large part, because He has saved us and promises to be with us forever.
3. Urgency in Evangelism. Without the right emphasis on hell, we will inevitably lack the proper motivation to go into all the world preaching what Jesus did, “repent and believe.” It is certainly true that the Gospel still contains good news without emphasizing hell too much. Other Gospel-themes are worthy of emphasis as well, such as the freedom from sin, the benefit of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives, the hope of eternal life, and lots more. But at the end of the day, the good news is only as good as the bad news is bad. It is often the bad news, the danger or the risk involved, that propels us to warn those going down a destructive path. This is true in our evangelism. Even when those who are far from God do not find the positive aspects of our faith attractive for one reason or another, we have a reason to persist in pleading with them to consider Christ when we soberly consider the terrors of hell that await all who do not trust in Christ for the forgiveness of sin. Nevertheless, it is good to know that when we proclaim Christ, we are not simply calling people away from something bad, but we are calling them into something so incomparably good; in fact, the only thing that satisfies completely and forever.
4. Glorious God-centeredness. Hell is not a human teaching. And it is my guess that, by a mile, it is any human teacher's least favorite doctrine. No human preacher takes pleasure in warning sinners of hell, only that God, in His kindness offers salvation from it. Hell often offends even those who believe in it. But, like anything that is real, it does not need to be popular to be true. An honest admission of hell, like few other things can, forces God to the center of our faith, replacing human wisdom and sentimentality. Hell reminds us that His ways and His thoughts are higher than ours. Only in the wisdom of God could something be created that is as consistent with the rest of His character as hell is. It reminds us that our Faith is not about what pleases us, makes sense to us or what we think is fair. Rather, that it is He who is in control. It is to His Word we must submit. It to His will we must conform. And because He is good, we can trust that all of this is for His eternal glory and for our good.
5. Seriousness of Sin. Without the proper emphasis on hell (eternal conscious punishment) we are prone to make light of our sin. Even though few admit it, hell seems to us to be a divine overreaction, especially when we remember that the Bible says breaking one law makes us guilty of it all. The only reason hell might seem to us to be an unjust overreaction is because we tend to downplay just how bad sin is and just how holy/pure God is. The truth is, it matters who we sin against. There is a different level of punishment for back-talking a friend than there is for back-talking a parent. Every sin is “high treason against the eternally holy heavenly king” of the universe, thus deserving of eternal punishment. Now, every Christian that I know wants to sin less and be more holy, but it is all too easy to take for granted God’s abundant forgiveness of our sins (past, present and future). The Christian who ignores hell forgets the fact that Christ took our place and endured the wrath of God that we deserved, and that every sin we commit (before and after salvation) is what made the cross necessary in the first place.
So, let’s not forget about hell. And maybe you can think of other reasons that it is our loss if we lose the doctrine of hell.
Post inspired by: 5 Myths About Hell