What is Hell?

What does the Bible actually say about Hell? Senior Pastor Brian Tome from Crossroads Church unpacks the stories in week 3 of "Heaven, Hell and Here".

Heaven

Heaven and hell are some of the least popular parts of the gospel among nonbelievers. Nobody likes the idea of consequences for our actions and judgement for our sins. If I would ask a young child if she would rather live in a world free of any consequences or in a world with consequences what do you think she would pick? What would you pick? We like being able to do whatever we want without any negative consequences. On the other hand, if I would ask a young child if she would rather have consequences for others or live in a world where others can do whatever they want without any consequences I’m sure she would pick a world with consequences. We don’t like when others do evil acts and get away with it. We long for justice and when someone does something evil in our society we want to see the person pay the consequences for the evil act, we don’t want the person to get away with it.

Many people who do not believe in God still believe in heaven, but most people who don’t believe in God don’t believe in hell. Nobody wants hell to exist, not even Christians, but at the same time a universe without hell would mean a universe without justice. God is merciful, but he is also a God of justice. If God let everyone do whatever they want and enter heaven he wouldn’t be a loving God. Not every criminal in this world will be captured and held accountable in a court, but no criminal will escape God’s judgement at the end of life. I once heard a pastor preach on the topic of hell and he said that anyone who has come face to face with pure evil in this world can fully understand why there is a need for hell. If there was no hell, what would hold us back from taking revenge on each other? When you have seen and experienced pure evil hell becomes a comforting thing, because you know that nobody will ever escape justice in the end.

We have all sinned and nobody will enter heaven without having first surrendered their life to Christ. We are not all murderers or rapists, but we have all sinned. I consider myself to be a good person, but I have sinned and deserve judgement just like anyone else. I don’t deserve heaven, heaven is God’s free gift to me when I surrender my life to Christ. I have never cheated on my spouse, I have no criminal record, I have never killed anyone, but I’m still a sinner.

Once I kissed a guy who was interested in me although I knew he was engaged to someone else, not a nice thing to do. I was also a part of groups who bullied other kids both in elementary school and in high school, not a loving thing to do. I used to steal a lot of stuff from different stores when I was in high school, that’s not good. I’m not going to list all the sins I’ve committed in my life so far but my point is that we are all sinners although we like to view ourselves as “good people”. I’m not a good person, I’m an imperfect human-being and I’m a sinner. My final destination after this life is hell, unless I surrender to Christ and accept Jesus into my heart. When I surrender to Christ I’m forgiven for all my sins. I have access to this forgiveness because Jesus chose to take the punishment that I deserved, he was willing to go to hell for me, so that I would never have to experience that. Imagine that you were sentenced to life in prison and someone shows up to take that prison sentence for you, so that you are free to go. Jesus did that for each one of us, we are all “sentenced to hell” for what we have done during this life, but Jesus took our sentence upon himself and was sentenced to death in our place.

I have no fear of death at all, if I die tomorrow I’m ready. Don’t get me wrong, I hope that I will get to live for many more years but I’m not afraid of death. What I’m afraid of is that not everyone that I love will be in heaven with me one day. I’m fully aware of the fact that only those who have surrendered their lives to Christ will enter heaven. When my Grand Mother died five years ago I was sad, but at the same time I had peace, because I knew that I would get to see her again one day. I knew that my Grand Mother had faith in God and was a believer. I don’t know where all my friends and family members stand with God, if they have surrendered their lives to Christ or not. We all have to make that choice for ourselves, nobody else’s faith can save our souls. Each one of us have one life to decide if we will surrender our lives to Christ or if we will choose to rather reject God. You can have all the knowledge in the world about God but it isn’t before we surrender to God that our soul is saved. The reason it takes any effort at all to surrender to God is that our spiritual enemy is pulling hard in the other direction, keeping us away from God and away from our purpose. One of our spiritual enemy’s most common tactics is fear, he can use fear to keep us away from a lot of good things that God has for us in life. Fear of what others will think of us, fear of the future, fear of pain etc.

One interesting thing that I learned about heaven and hell as a new believer a few years ago is that hell means complete separation from God and heaven means to be with God forever. We often imagine heaven to look like something we have seen in the movies. Our idea of hell can also be based on what we have seen in a movie. The Biblical description of heaven is simply a place free of evil, a place where we are with God forever. Hell is a place where we will be completely separated from God, which means we will also be separated from anything that is good, anything that is love. Whether we are Christians or not, none of us knows what it’s like to be completely separated from God. In this present world, not all of us are interested in God but he still loves every single one of us. God is constantly present in our lives whether we notice him or not. None of us are completely separated from God in this world.

This present world is a mix of good and evil. There is no place on Earth where there is only evil, there is always a little bit of good in the midst of all the darkness. There is also no place on Earth where there is only good, evil is always present. We can have a wonderful day at the beach with our family, until we end up in an argument with each other. We can also be going through something very difficult in life but in the midst of all the darkness we have a hope that things will get better. Our present world is always a mix of evil and good. God is with us, but our spiritual enemy is also present. The hope of heaven is that it’s coming around the corner. When our souls are saved and secure in Christ we have a peace and hope that nothing can take away from us. Once we are saved we can not loose our salvation. The storms will keep coming in this life but we can face every difficulty with confidence, hope and peace because God is with us. If God is with us, then who can be against us?

Life after death

There are many different testimonies out there from people from different countries all over the world who have had near death experiences. What's really cool today is that we all have a chance to hear them thanks to the internet. Some of these people share stories about being surrounded by complete peace, love and light during the minutes they were dead, a place that they believe was heaven. Other people share stories that are much more scary. They talk about ending up in a place that was completely dark, cold and where they felt a strong presence of evil. Some people talk about hearing voices and loud screams in this place. They believe that this place must have been hell.

Ian McCormack is an Australian who was a surfer and an atheist back in 1982 when he had his near death experience. He was stung by five Box jellyfish while diving and was dead for many minutes before he came back to life. Ian's story is quite interesting because while he was dead he ended up in a place that he believes was hell, then he was pulled into heaven, and later he came back to life again.

Ian McCormack was an atheist back in 1982 when he had his near death experience but his mother was a Christian. As Ian was laying in the ambulance dying he remembered the Lord's prayer that his mother had taught him and started praying the prayer and crying out to God. You can hear Ian share his story in this video.

Our good deeds can't save us

One of the most common misconceptions about the Bible and God is that it is the “good people” who make it to heaven and those who have broken the rules in the Bible will end up in hell. I think the reason we assume this is the way Christianity works is that we are so used to this way of thinking ourselves. We marry “the one” and as long as our husband lives up to all our expectations on him and keeps all our “rules” we will love him, if he breaks a lot of the rules we will eventually divorce him. When a person in our society follows the law everything is fine, but if a person starts to break many laws he or she will eventually be thrown into prison. Us humans like the idea of karma; “you get what you deserve”, but God has a totally different way of relating to us.

When God sent Jesus to Earth it changed everything, rather than “you will get what you deserve” it became “When we do something wrong, Jesus gets what we deserve.” When Jesus died on the cross he willingly paid the price for all the sins committed of everyone in the whole world and died for us, for our mistakes. The reason someone had to pay for all our mistakes was that God is a God of justice, he won’t let any wrongdoing go unpunished. When someone murders another person God doesn’t think: “Oh that’s okay, I will just look in the other direction”.

When Jesus died he took all the sins of humanity on himself, the sins from the past, the present and the future. Jesus paid for all our mistakes once and for all, so that the day each one of us will meet God we will be faultless in front of an all-powerful perfect God. Jesus dying on the cross is as if you were being sentenced to the death penalty and Jesus shows up in court and says: “Take me instead, let this person go, I’m willing to die instead of this person.” Why would anyone do such a thing? The answer is love.

“For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that anyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3:16 NLT

Jesus died so that every single sin of mankind could become forgiven, but each one of us are free to choose if we want this to apply to our own lives or not. During our short lives on earth our main task here will be to either accept God and invite him into our lives or to reject God. This will be the most important decision we make in our lives, the moment we decide to accept God and invite him into our lives it changes everything, we become forgiven and washed clean of all our past mistakes. We become a brand new person (spiritually speaking that is, don’t expect your wrinkles to be gone).

We often tend to think that God wants peace on Earth today but the Bible makes it clear that Jesus didn’t come to Earth to bring peace, he came to bring division. God is interested in seeing who is with him, and who is against him. One of the places this is mentioned in The Bible is in Matthew 25:

“All the nations will be gathered in his presence, and he will separate the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will place the sheep at his right hand and the goats at his left. Then the King will say to those on his right, Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.”

Matthew 25:32-34 NLT 

This world that we live in today will never see peace, it will always see different forms of chaos, but when we become followers of Christ we can have peace on the inside despite the chaos that surrounds us. The good news is that this chaotic world is only temporary. The Bible makes it clear that there will be a day in the future when everything of this old world will pass away and there will be a new world where there is no more death, no more mourning and no more suffering. God will be in the world with us and we will see him face to face. The Bible talks about this in Revelation 21:

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.”

Revelation 21:4 NLT

The Bible also makes it clear that Jesus will come back to Earth one day and nobody will know what day that will be, we now live in what is called the end times. One day, maybe sooner than we think, we will stand in front of the God of the universe and have to answer for all our choices in life. Our days in this life are numbered, from the day we are born our clock starts ticking, we move closer and closer to death every day and we never know what day will be our last. We are not guaranteed tomorrow, we only have today. The days we are given on this Earth are our chance to decide, are we going to choose to accept God or reject God, the rest is details.

I used to work as a nursing assistant in a nursing home when I was younger and sometimes I noticed that it seemed almost like all the good people would die quicker while the really mean people would live longer. I wondered why God would let some really mean people live for so long, while others who were so loving would die at a younger age. It makes more sense to me today. Life is short for all of us, we only have a few years on this Earth to decide how we feel about God, to pick a side. Some people seem to need more time than others to make the right choice.

Once we choose to accept God and invite him into our hearts God starts to change each one of us from the inside out through the Holy Spirit. When you see someone going from being a non-believer to a Christian you might see them start doing a lot of good things, but it is important to remember that it is never a person’s good works that saves them. The Bible makes it clear that anyone who believes in Jesus, repents and asks for forgiveness for his or her sins will become saved.

Most of us understand that for example a woman who loves God and loves people will go to heaven the day she dies. We are also aware that a man who for example was a rapist and murderer and who continued to do evil up until the moment he died will go to hell. What many of us have missed on the other hand is that even the criminal who has committed many crimes but at the end of his life becomes a believer in Jesus, repents and asks for forgiveness for all of his sins will go to heaven when he dies. We also tend to miss the fact that even the woman who thinks of herself as a good person but who doesn’t accept Jesus into her heart during her life will not go to heaven the day she dies. This is radical and couldn’t be further away from how humans see things.

Humans see love as something you earn, while God loves everyone on this earth and is willing to forgive any sin as long as the person is truly regretful and wants to turn away from his or her former way of living and start following Jesus. It is not our long lists of good things we did during our lives on earth that will get us into heaven, it is our faith in Jesus that saves us. It is so simple, yet so radical. God’s love for humanity is unlike anything else you will ever discover on this earth.