Why Hell?

Hell. Its a four letter word. Hell. A few people seem to like it too much. For many others it is a real obstacle towards embracing faith and a life lived in friendship with God. Lots of people wonder, "Why hell? If God is loving and good, then why is it that the Bible talks about a place like hell?" If you're asking that question, I'd love to offer some thoughts. They probably won't be an "answer" but maybe they can begin a conversation.

What is hell? We may be surprised to learn that Jesus - gentle Jesus, loving and kind - talks about hell quite a bit. The word he uses for hell is gehenna, which is one way of referring to a place called the Valley of Hinnom. Hinnom was a valley outside Jerusalem. Before the Jews had captured Jerusalem in the days of King David (roughly 1000 years before Jesus), Hinnom had been used by the previous owners as the spot where they sacrificed children to their gods, usually by burning them to death. Understandably, the Jews were horrified by this and they considered Hinnom to be an unclean spot and they refused to ever build anything there. Instead, they began to use it for their trash, so that by the time of Jesus, Hinnom was a large, stinking trash heap. In an effort to keep it down, they would often burn it, sometimes using sulfur to speed up the process. They place smelled of rotten eggs and all things nasty. It was a sticking, rotting, nasty place where no one would ever want to live; the kind of place where, if you did live there, you would weep and gnash your teeth and feel all alone. This is the literal reality behind the Bible's picture of hell. So will there literally be flames in hell and all that? [shoulder shrug] Who knows. But I think we can be sure that it would feel like living in a landfill.

Why hell? I think that if you were to break it all the way down to the most fundamental aspects, hell exists because of God's commitments to who he is, and because of his commitment to people. Let me break that down further.

God is committed to who he is. God cannot deny his own nature. God is perfect in being who he is. Not only is God perfect in his love, God is also perfect in his holiness. Not only is God perfect in his mercy, God is perfect in his justice. We sometimes think of these two things as being at odds, but anyone who's a parent, or who's a boss, knows that love and justice are not at odds. Often the most loving act is to hold someone accountable for their actions. That's justice. God's justice is dynamic, it cuts both ways. Not only will God hold accountable those in sin, but God will never turn away anyone who earnestly seeks Him. We know that Jesus is the way to God and that all who are saved are saved by Jesus, yet the Bible makes it pretty clear that some people we might expect to see in the consummation of the Kingdom won't be there, and that there will likely be some others there that surprise us. Now, this justice of God flows from his holiness, from his sovereignty, from his being the King. His holiness is such he won't allow sin in his presence, because that would seem to condone it. Imagine the President and his staff. If there were a good President who allowed corrupted officials to fill the White House, wouldn't that challenge us to consider if the President really were wise or good after all? And God's goal for humanity is that we one day partner with him in the administration of the universe.

God is also committed to people. He loves us and wants to be with us. He's been pursuing us for thousands and thousands of years. But he knows what we sometimes seem to overlook - that we're not just "okay." God knows that we're not perfect. He knows the operating system code of our hearts is corrupted and that we need to be rebooted with new code. He's committed to seeing us transformed, because we need it. God's image in us, that he gave us as a gift, is blurred, and he wants to bring it into focus. And one aspect of that freedom that God gave us is freedom. We have the freedom of choice. Some people will take that divine gift and use it to turn against the Giver. God is so committed to us, God so loves us, that he's willing to let us turn away. Isn't this how all good relationships work? The greatest loves always have a great risk. His great love for us has always included the risk that his love might not be requited. And so God is committed enough to us to let us walk away.

But where do we go outside God's presence? Hinnom. When we walk away from God, we enter into the lonely, stinking place, where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. It is a place devoid of beauty and grace and love, because it is away from God's presence.

Now, I think people might struggle with this biblical vision for a few reasons.

First, they wonder if people are really like this. We sometimes have a hard time imagining that someone would want to walk away from God, who is understood to be this gracious being of love and light. It is hard to believe, but is it really that hard to imagine? We all know husbands and fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and friends and coworkers who choose against all that is loving and gracious and beautiful, and walk instead into the abyss of a bottle or a bed or a betting table. Don't we? And even recognizing that addiction is often involved, so is choice always involved. At a more mundane level, don't we all know what it is like to know what is the right thing to do and still do something totally different instead? Now turn that into a life.

Second, we're turned off by hell because we're not sure we like this picture of God. We're not sure that we like this God. But imagine if it were different. For everyone to be with God, for there to be no hell, best I can tell God would have to do one of two things: a) he'd have to overlook sin and neglect justice, or b) he'd have to make people want to be with him. Are either of those a reality, a God, we'd rather have? Don't we all long for justice? Do any of us want to believe that our choices are, in the end, irrelevant? We want God to be God - a Being who is loving, just and good.