Who Will Go to Hell

 In looking at the question of who is in hell, we can look again at popular culture. Who goes to hell? In the movie Ghost, Hell is for the evil people who have done the most evil things. We see the main character going to Heaven without having any expressed faith or belief in God. If we take a wider look, most of those who go to Heaven are the "good" people. In contrast, only "bad" people go to hell.

Is this true? What is the standard? What is good or bad? The Bible teaches something similar, that good people can earn Heaven and bad people deserve Hell. The bad news is, there are no good people. No one is good. Everyone is bad. Jesus himself said that no one is good except God. Romans tells us that all have sinned. No one does good, no one is righteous. The book of James says that breaking part of the law is enough to condemn you, and one sin is the same as breaking all the laws and commandments. Every single person has sinned and violated God's law. Let's be honest, we sin often. Little lies, lust, envy, boasting, gossip, and cursing can be daily (or hourly) occurrences. It is not that we sometimes sin, we are sinful in the core of our being. We are apart from Christ, we are slaves so sin, sin in the defining characteristic of our lives.

The good news is, we don't have to depend on ourselves to get to Heaven. We are all bad people, and being good (perfect) is required to get into Heaven. To enter God's presence, your sin must be paid for, but you don't have anything in which to pay the penalty. You have a million-dollar fine and not a penny to your name. If we were required to earn our way into Heaven, there would be no hope. We enter Heaven when the price is paid on our behalf by Jesus. Jesus paid for our entrance into Heaven, but trusting Him and making Him the Lord of our lives, we become adopted into God's family. We are allowed to pass the test by using the score that Jesus earned.

Those individuals who accept Jesus, trust Him and follow Him as Lord will enter Heaven. Every other person on earth will be judged by the things they have done. They will be judged on how they have acted and the sins they have committed. All those who are guilty of sin will be sent to Hell. In Hell, each individual will understand they deserve to be in Hell. Those individuals who are cavalier about sin and reject God knowingly will confess that Jesus is Lord and will accept their eternity knowing it is exactly what they deserve. When facing the throne of God, every sinner will confess they are sinners and deserve to be eternally separated from Hell, they will understand the fate that awaits them and know they are completely and totally deserving of eternity in Hell.

God loves us, and He made a way we can avoid this fate. He offers us an opportunity to reject sin and self and trust Christ. If we do, we will praise and rejoice in that day. If we reject Him, we will be rejected and end up in the eternity we deserve.

What is it Like in Hell?

     There are lots of ideas from popular culture, movies, books, games, and TV about what hell is like. Most of the time, it is depicted as being underground in a cave-like area. It is also usually seen as hot, filled with flames or molten lava. Dante further gave imagery of hell with The Inferno as part of his Divine Comedy. Dante imagined hell with 9 levels or circles, each one worse than the one before. Each depth contains worse sinners than those before, well the Devil in the center in ice, with three individuals in his 3 mouths, one being Judas Iscariot. 

    Hell is often portrayed as home to ugly and evil monsters that torment and torture the souls trapped in hell. The concept of eternal punishment extends outside of the Christian tradition, so we find many of these teachings get mixed a merged together. As in the inferno, there are mixings of extreme temperatures from flames to ice. Often, a division is created for those who are very evil and those who aren't as bad. As we have discussed in previous posts, the Devil and demons are often seen as the jailers or rules of hell. How do we know what to believe? The only credible source on what it is like in hell is found in the Bible, so what does the Bible say about hell?

Much of the most compelling descriptions of Hell come from Jesus. Jesus, being part of the Godhead and divine, knows and understands Hell. He was involved in creation, including the creation of Hell. Jesus tells some parables and stories about Hell and gives some powerful descriptors, so the best way to understand is to look at what He said about it.

Jesus tells a story of a rich man and a poor beggar. The rich man goes to "torment" while the poor man goes to "paradise". The rich man looks and sees the poor man in Heaven, and asks for the man to put his finger in water and cool his tongue. The man is told that a great gulf exists and no one can cross over. From this description, Hell exists outside of the realm of the physical, not in a cave or underground. The rich man can see Heaven, but cannot receive any of the benefits. It is unclear if those in Heaven can see into Hell. The rich man is also in physical pain, experiencing thirst, and says he is in anguish in the flames. He asks for his tongue to be cooled, showing the great heat. The man asks for the poor man to be sent back to warn his brothers, not wanting them to experience the suffering of being in Hell. You can read the Parable in Luke 16:19-31.

Jesus spoke of Hell as the place where "the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die". This description is highlighted by one of the words that Jesus often used when referring to Hell. He uses the word Gehenna. This is an actual place in Israel, once called the Valley of Ben-Hinnom. This valley was a place where many terrible things were done, including human and child sacrifice. This valley was cursed and eventually became a place for garbage. There was a fire that was lit and kept burning constantly, this is where the corpses of animals were thrown. Spoiled items, human waste, and other things that were foul smelling would be disposed of by the fire that was kept burning. It was an unpleasant place with foul-smelling smoke. Maggots would feed on those rotten parts not burned in the fire, giving us the idea of the flames and the worm. A disgusting, flaming garbage pile in the location that Jesus used to illustrate Hell and eternal torment.

Finally, Hell is eternal and completely separated from God. In 2 Thessalonians 1:8–9, we read that those in Hell are away from the presence of the Lord. As we discussed in an earlier post, everything that is good comes from God. We know that from James 1:17. In Hell, there is nothing good, no love or peace. There is no friendship or compassion. None of the things that we have on earth are good, even the things we take for granted. There is no rest, so deep breaths, not even the feeling of relief after being on your feet and being able to sit down. All of those good things are gone because everything good comes from God. The punishment for sin will be completely realized and the weight and depth of sin will be experienced in the torment. Individuals will fully comprehend what it means to sin against a holy, perfect, all-powerful God. The individuals who speak freely against God today will confess that Jesus is the Lord of all creation, that God is Holy, and that they are being given the punishment they deserve. This is definitely not a place where you want to spend eternity.

Does the Devil Rule in Hell?

 This is a question I tackle often because popular culture has it all wrong. In popular culture today, God and the Devil are at war and both rule their kingdoms. This isn't true, God is not at war with the Devil. The Devil has already lost the war and will be judged. The duality we see doesn't exist in the Bible. Where does it come from? I'm glad you asked.

In pagan mythology, there is often this arrangement. An underworld ruled by an evil force, heaven ruled by a good force. Think of Greek Mythology, Zeus on Olympus, and Hades in the underworld. That structure has been brought into the Christian faith, putting Satan in the position of Hades. In this structure, Satan and demons rule Hell, they are in control. The idea that Demons torture souls and they freely roam is in movies, tv shows, books, and video games. This is not a Christian idea, this is pagan.

The reality is that Hell was created to be the eternal place of punishment for Satan. Hell is his final destination, he will be cast into the lake of fire. Satan does not rule Hell. That would be the equivalent of taking a maximum security prison and finding the worst criminal and putting him in charge. This just isn't the case.

Satan does not live in hell, the Bible teaches he is on earth. The demons are on earth unless they have been bound or cast into the abyss. Hell is a prison with no escape, no guards, no demons to torture anyone, just hopeless despair in a place where no good exists. Satan does not rule hell. Satan does not live in hell. Satan does not want to go to hell. Hell is punishment created for Satan, demons, and those who have chosen to follow him instead of following Jesus. Forget what you see in movies, that is not what hell is about.

Is Hell a Real Place?

 Today, I want to tackle the issue of the eternal, specifically hell. Hell has gone by many names, hell, Hades, the pit, eternal torment, Gehenna, and the Lake of Fire to list a few of the most popular. To understand hell, we need to look at what it is, what it's for, and what the Bible teaches about it. We will unpack things in a few posts, today I want to focus on the question of the reality of hell.

Many people struggle with the existence of hell, with the fact that loving God would create a place of torment. Why would God create a place like hell? It is simple, hell is the eternal place for sin. Unforgiven and unrepentant sin ends up in hell. It was created for the Devil and the demons who followed him. Satan is the place where he will be punished for his rebellion. We will tackle Satan's relationship to hell in another post. For our purposes today, we just need to understand hell was initially created for Satan. 

In the fall of man, humans gave dominion over the world to Satan and joined his team. Mankind, apart from salvation in Jesus Christ, is part of Satan's team. This puts people in the same camp with demons. We have, through sin, rebelled against God. The ramifications of this is that people, like the Devil, will be separated from God.

The reason hell exists is to keep sin and God separate because sin and those with unrepented, unconfessed, and unforgiven sin cannot stand in God's presence. Those who have made a choice to not accept God and have embraced sin will be eternally separated from God. If you don't want to have anything to do with God, then He will oblige and you will spend eternity apart from Him.

Hell is real and it is eternal. Once you leave this life, your soul will exist in one place or another. There are only two options. Souls are not destroyed. There are some who teach that once a soul experiences hell, it is eventually destroyed. The Bible doesn't teach this, what it teaches is that a soul in hell is eternal and conscious for eternity. The soul is eternal and experiences are eternal.

Why is hell torment? The answer is simple because hell is a total separation from God. Everything that is God in life is from God. Everything that brings joy, happiness, and fulfillment comes from God. Even as sinners, people still live in God's presence and receive blessings from Him. Existence in hell is separation from anything good. Joy, friendship, hope, and rest are all good things from God. Without God, there is nothing good. In this life, we cannot even comprehend an existence with no goodness. The ability to take a deep breath and relax is not an option in hell. Relief, comfort, relationships, everything we do that makes us feel good or happy or content. None of them exist in hell.

To sum up, hell is a real place that was created for Satan and his followers. Those who rebel against God will be separated from God for eternity. That separation causes torment because everything that is good is from God. Without the presence of God, there is nothing good. This separation is eternal, and the soul, being eternal in nature, will be in this reality for all of eternity.