If God is a loving God, why is there any need for Hell?  Couldn’t He just let us off at the end?  I too find the concept of Hell very difficult to justify, and what I have to say on the subject, I say with no authority at all - my thoughts and words are merely conjectural.

 

As I begin this message, I should say that I do not believe any of us are qualified to offer an explanation of Hell which we know to be correct; nor do I believe that we are justified in attempting to prove the doctrine palatable, or even tolerable.  It is not tolerable, and I shall make no attempt to prove it is.  But I can, I think, attempt to offer an answer for the justification of Hell’s existence based upon our own insistences that justice should be existent at all times in all places. 

 

Before I go on, I should also say that there will be those (myself included) who have lost loved ones in the past, who will naturally be concerned about the eternal state of those loved ones previously departed.  Now it would be a mistake for any of us to presume one way or another, the eternal destiny of our loved ones based upon what we thought their views of Christianity were when they were with us.  The truth is, God’s relationship with man (even those who we presume were unbelievers) is, I think, far more alive than our own imagination permits us to recognise.  God, who gave man his wisdom, knows your thoughts better than you do, and each individual’s distinct relationship with God, however dormant or non-existent it may seem to the external observer, means, I think, that there will be a lot more people saved than we could ever realise.  In other words, I believe, ultimately, God’s grace will extend much further than we can perhaps realise.  But that is no reason not to be concerned about our eternal destiny. 

 

So here, with the subject of Hell, we face one of the biggest paradoxes in Christianity; God, who was willing to become a man so He could die for us, seems equally willing to send to Hell, creatures who do not accept Him as a man. 

 

But I think, in order to understand this, we must first understand what being part of the divine is.  If we can only fully understand ourselves through Christ; that is, if our accepting His dying for us is the only thing that can wash us clean and prepare us for Heaven, then naturally we are going to be in a wretched state in the end if we continue to reject Him.  And we see that our earthly experiences provide us with many similes; that is, for every wonderful state or emotion, there is usually an opposite state or emotion which is a wholly negative reflection of the positive. 

 

And if we look closely we will soon see that our feelings about Heaven and Hell percolate into our earthly feelings about other things.  I think a simple example will show what I mean.  Picture to yourself a man that you believe is the complete embodiment of evil (whatever image works for you).  And now imagine him on his deathbed at seventy-five years old - here is a man who has lived the most despicable life imaginable, about to die, with no guilt or remorse for all the terrible things he has done.  Would any of us really want him to die and go straight to Heaven, while all the time having him remain wholly unaware of what a despicable fiend he really was?  No, we would surely desire that this man could somehow be made aware of what a wretched individual he was.  That he could at least come to realise what true goodness was, and following on from that, realise where he had gone wrong.

 

In other words, we are really asking that the man no longer remains content with his despicable self, for to be content with such things is to be, in one sense, anti-human - exiled form humanity.  

 

Grace itself can hardly hope that this man stays as he is, unaware of his wickedness, for such wickedness is contrary to God’s own nature.  This man had free will his whole life, so he had the choice to remain as he was or he had the choice to repent - but God was in no position to forgive him as he was, for that would mean looking through his wickedness.  We are taught to forgive everyone who sins against us (Matthew 6:14,15), but in one sense, that forgiveness can only occur if the offender is truly penitent.  I am not denying that a man serves himself a greater cognitive advantage if he forgives everyone regardless, but the true act of forgiveness (in its whole sense) can only occur if the offender is sorry for his actions.  A man who is anything but sorry is unable to accept forgiveness for his wrongs; and if he is unable to accept forgiveness; if he rejects Christ on the Cross, he cannot be saved, even by God.  He has committed the one unforgivable sin - he has sinned against the Holy Spirit, that is, he has looked right through his own potential salvation.  And that, I think, is why God had to create a place for those who remain unrepentant.  All men cannot be saved; if they were then there is no such thing as free will as we currently understand it.  If there is such a thing as free will, then a man must make the self-surrender volitionally. 

 

The Bible has several different images of Hell, and which ones are entirely literal, we cannot always say.  But we do know that the purpose of Hell is one of privation; where the true and real absence of God is fully realised; where a person’s creaturely position - that of being created to know God - is made known.  And presumably, the torment of Hell can only be quantified as a comparison to the glory of Heaven, just as the feeling of not being in love is only felt in its fullness when the absence of that love is most tangible.  Only when the heart is broken does the absence of love become unbearable. 

And with this analogy, I can now put forward my most fervent belief of what Hell is really like.  I have always had a problem with this subject because even though the Bible clearly intimates that Hell will be an awful place, I cannot help thinking that the God I believe in has something better in store for the unrepentant folk than unbearable eternal suffering.  This might be wishful thinking at its most unrealistic, but it might also be the only true and real explanation of how a God full of grace can send any of us to an eternal place that is wholly disconnected from Himself.  Some ascetic Christians might claim that the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31) belies my claim, but I do not think that it does.  Firstly, while there are several messages of edification in the parable, a description of Hell is not one of them.  In this parable, the NIV translation ‘Hell’ is a little misleading - ‘Hades’ is more accurate.  That the Rich Man’s fate was a fixity of torment, we cannot doubt.  But I strongly suspect that this is not the same description of the Hell that men and women will experience after mankind’s final judgement, for in this situation, the Rich Man’s despair was still, in one sense, a despair which involves the process of forward thinking (V.27). 

 

I have noticed that some Christians quickly become indignant when they encounter people who believe that Hell will be, in some way, good because our God is both loving and omnipotent.  One might suppose their indignation is because of a perceived Bible contradiction, but I have a suspicion that it is often because they like to think, in the back of their minds, that those who reject God on earth are fully deserving of their punishment.  Any thoughts of this kind should be banished from the mind, for it is the kind of thinking that can turn good men into insolent fiends.

 

I freely suspect that the perished are, in one sense, thriving outcasts, somehow content in their own existence; that their eternal fixity will be, in one sense, bearable, just like an incarcerated criminal is able to make some sort of life for himself on the inside while still lamenting the loss of his freedom on the outside.  I do not mean that the spiritually damned may not wish to come out of Hell; in the blurry, nebulous fashion wherein a jealous man ‘desires’ to be self-secure; but once the world has ended they surely do not desire any form of escape from the position they have chosen for themselves.  In that sense, despite being shut out from God, they will, I think, have found a way in which they are able to accept their eternal position with some degree of comfort.  They enjoy forever the eternal experiences of being the creature that they themselves had chosen to be while still on earth.  Just as those who know Christ will become free in His presence, those who rejected Him will remain self-yoked, forever on the outside of paradise. 

 

Those who are angry about the concept of Hell are, perhaps, secretly wishing that God could wipe everybody’s slate clean at the end - that He could have created a situation where all of us have the chance of a fresh beginning.  But it is not always realised that He has done so already.  The moment He carried His cross and died for us was the moment that all this happened.  The second chance is here with us already.  And others who know about it have the opportunity to have a fresh start - a new beginning where Christ comes to live inside them. 

 

St Paul says that we will only be judged on what we know, not that which is unknown to us.  There are many people who will live on earth and never hear or read one word about Christ, and I doubt very much that God will condemn them because of that.  But any who have heard the name Christ, know that their sins are wiped out, and therefore know that a second chance is already in their grasp.  In that sense, those who object to Hell usually look past their own personal obligation to accept the glorious thing which Christ did for them.  A corporate objection is not going to be enough to wipe the slate clean, for if Our Lord created Heaven in order that we might share in His glory, there must also be a place, an eternal home, for those who have rejected Him.