Hell is God’s right and just response to those who rebel and reject Him and refuse to return to relationship with Him...

This week we have been addressing the skeptical question “How can a loving God send people to Hell?" We discovered that the reason why Hell is a part of the message of Christianity is due to the fact that the idea of standing before God to give an account of one’s life and be judged based on how one lived their life was a part of the message and teaching of Jesus. As a matter of fact, Jesus, who more than anyone reveals and explains the love of God to the world, spoke more about standing before God to give an account of one’s life and be judged based on how one lived their life more than any other person in the letters that make up the Bible.

However, in my experience in engaging people who have this question and objection, there seem to be several grounds for their objection. First, many people are offended simply by the notion of judgment. We discovered the timeless response to this objection is that God is not only love. God is also right, just, and good. And because God is right, just, and good, God must not only love, He must also hate. He must hate that which is evil and that which is contrary to what is right and just. To say God has no right to exercise His right and just response to evil is to simultaneously say He has no love, for you cannot divorce those two ideas.

 In addition, while we may object to the idea of some final judgment, it is the idea of a final judgment that gives dignity to our lives. God doesn’t judge dogs, or even cats, although they should be judged. Unlike any other earthly creature, God treats us as responsible moral agents, because we were created to be responsible. God’s judgment also reveals the reality that we have been created for a life of meaning and purpose in relationship with God and relationship with others.  How we treat God and others matter, because every human being has been created in the image of God.

Second, people object to Jesus clear teaching on the idea of being judged by how one lived their life because of the basis or standard that they are judged on. We discovered that the basis or standard that people face at the end of their lives is not about whether or not one believes in Jesus.  The basis or standard is whether or not a person rejected God and did things out of that rejection that hurt God and others.

When we talk about what the Bible calls sin, sin is a selfish love that places ourselves above God and others and chooses to rebel and reject God and others. It is our selfishness and rebellion that leads us to do things that hurt God and others. And it is that selfishness and rebellion that separates us from God, because we really never wanted God to be first in our life. Instead we want to be first in our life. Hell is the culmination of the effects of selfishness and rebellion and the confirmation of God’s opposition to it. Hell is the end result of human choice and the judgment of God. There can be no fairer verdict than that.

A similar objection surrounding what Jesus and the letters that make up the Bible have to say about the idea of being judged by how one lived their life because of the basis or standard that they are judged on sounds something like this: “What about the pygmy in Africa who never heard about the Bible or Jesus? How can God judge them and find them guilty?”

If you resonate with this question and objection, I want to let you know that you are raising a fair question or objection. And your question and objection is not a new question or objection. As a matter of fact, we see the Apostle Paul address this very objection in a section of a letter that is recorded for us in the New Testament of the Bible called the book of Romans. So let’s jump into this section of the book of Romans, beginning in Romans 2:12-16:

For all who have sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law, and all who have sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law; for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.

To understand what the Apostle Paul is communicating in these verses, we first need to define some terms. Sin here refers to acts of commission and omission that are committed against God and others that flow from our selfish rebellion against God and the word of God.  The Law here refers to the first five books in our Bibles today, which was called the Law or the Torah.  Paul’s point is that everyone who is guilty of selfish rebellion and sin will experience a life that is eternally separated from God in Hell.

Regardless of whether or not a person was raised in the church or not; regardless of whether or not a person participated in an organized religious system that had rules or not; a person who out of their selfishness and rebellion hurts God and others will be found guilty upon Jesus return and will experience God’s just and right response as a result of their guilt. Now a natural and almost immediate objection to this statement by Paul is “well that does not seem fair or just. How can God judge someone when they did not know the standard? How can someone who never read the Bible be judged and experience the same punishment as the person who has read the Bible?

Paul provides the answer this objection by stating “for it is not the hearers of the Law who are just before God, but the doers of the Law will be justified.” Paul’s point here is that it is not reading or hearing the Bible that enables us to meet the standards that make us right with God. Instead, it is obedience to the message and the commands of the Bible that enable us to be declared not guilty and right with God.

You see obedience matters. This morning, it is not church attendance or Bible memorization that makes you right with God; it is faithfully following the message and teachings of the Bible that cause us to be right with God. Now you may be thinking “You just dodged my objection. What about those who never have seen or heard about the Bible? How can God judge them and find them guilty? What about the pygmy in Africa who never heard about the Bible or Jesus?” Notice what Paul states next in verses 14-16:

For when Gentiles who do not have the Law do instinctively the things of the Law, these, not having the Law, are a law to themselves, in that they show the work of the Law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness and their thoughts alternately accusing or else defending them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the secrets of men through Christ Jesus.

Here we see the Apostle Paul explain that when the Gentiles, which refers to those who were not Jewish ethnically or religiously and who have never read the Bible or attend church naturally live their lives by a code of conduct or standard that reflects the message and the teachings of the Bible, they are a Law to themselves. In other words, the natural impulse of humanity to live according to a similar code of conduct or a standard serves to reveal the internal presence of God’s Law or standard within their lives.

Did you know that humanity throughout history, across all cultures and continents has been guided by similar set of laws and standards? Without communicating with one another cultures and societies throughout the world share a common belief that certain activities and behaviors are just plain wrong. For example, it is universally viewed as being wrong to steal from someone. It is just not right.

By contrast, there are universal actions that are viewed as being positive and good. For example, the person who risks his life to save another is viewed in a positive light as doing something that is good across all cultures. And it is this intuitive and natural sense of good and evil that is universally present in humanity that reveals the reality of God’s existence. When Paul uses the phrase “they show the work of the Law written in their hearts” in verse 15, he is revealing for us the reality that God has written His moral Law on the hearts of all humanity.

Paul then explains that it is the conscience that provides the practical proof that God has written His moral law on the hearts of all humanity. The conscience is ones inward faculty of distinguishing right and wrong. And every human being has a conscience that serves to either accuse or defend our actions.  And while we can ignore our conscience; while we can suppress our conscience; and while we can even harden our conscience to the point that people would think that we have no conscience, at some point in all of our lives we have sensed our consciences activity in our lives.

At some point in our lives, we have responded to a situation or engaged in an activity that was good and honorable and felt our consciences affirmation of our actions. And at some point in our lives, we have responded to a situation or engaged in an activity that violated God’s moral law that was written on our hearts, which resulted in us having what- “a guilty conscience”. And it is the existence of a conscious that points us to the existence of God.  Paul’s point here is that regardless of the level of our exposure to the claims of Christ or the message and teachings of the Bible, our consciences testify and provide evidence of our guilt.

You see, when Jesus Christ returns, all of humanity will stand before Him. All of humanity will be responsible for their actions and their response to God based on the amount of revelation that they have received about God. You see, God is perfectly just and right. He treats everybody the same way.

Regardless of the level of our exposure to the claims of Christ or the message and teachings of the Bible, our consciences testify and provide evidence of our guilt or innocence. For those who never read a Bible or heard the message of the gospel, they will be held accountable for how they respond to God’s general revelation of Himself through the creation and through their conscience. If they lived a life that perfectly followed that internal standard as testified by their conscience, they will be declared not guilty.

However, if they selfishly rebelled against God’s law that was written in their hearts, their conscience will testify against them the moment it happened and again when they stand before Jesus. For those who have received God’s special revelation in the form of the letter that make up the Bible and exposure to the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel throughout history, they will be responsible for their response to the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel. And the standard is the same for all: perfection.

A third objection to Jesus clear teaching on the idea of being judged by how one lived their life surrounds the belief that the punishment is overly excessive. Usually, when I engage someone who has this skeptical question, the conversation goes something like this: “Everlasting condemnation. Isn’t that a little much? Why does it have to be everlasting? How can finite and temporal sin merit eternal punishment?”

If you find yourself resonating with this question and objection, here are three things that I would ask you to consider: First, if there is an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly right and just being called God, wouldn’t it be a little presumptuous to tell God how He should execute and administer His justice? Second, could it be that the reason why the condemnation is everlasting is due to the fact that we are eternal beings who have rebelled and rejected and infinitely holy and good Creator?

Third, it is important to understand that Hell will not be filled with people who have humble and repentant hearts that recognize their rebellion and desire to be right with God. Instead those who are in Hell have hard and rebellious hearts that continue to grow in the rebellion and rejection of God. We see this reality in a section of a letter in the New Testament of the Bible called the book of Revelation. Look at what we discover in Revelation 6:15-17:

Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; ¹⁶ and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; ¹⁷ for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?"

In other words, humanity clearly recognizes the existence of God and Jesus and the impending judgment of God and Jesus. And as God continues to bring His justice and judgment upon the selfishness and rebellion of humanity, John records how humanity will respond in Revelation 9:20-21:

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands, so as not to worship demons, and the idols of gold and of silver and of brass and of stone and of wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk; ²¹ and they did not repent of their murders nor of their sorceries nor of their immorality nor of their thefts.

You see Hell goes on forever because those who have rebelled and rejected God will never stop rebelling and rejecting God. And it is here that we discover the timeless answer to the skeptical question “How could a loving God send people to Hell?” And that timeless answer is this: Hell is God’s right and just response to those who rebel and reject Him and refuse to return to relationship with Him.

The letters that make up the Bible reveal the reality that God, in His rightness and justice, has set a day when all humanity will stand before Jesus to give an account for how they lived their lives here on earth and be held accountable for how they lived their lives on earth. For those who chose to rebel and reject the relationship with God that they were created for by refusing the opportunity to return to Him, they will experience an eternity apart from God where they will experience God’s right and just response to the wrongdoing and injustice that hurt God and others and that flowed from their rebellion and rejection of God. For those who responded to their need for forgiveness and rescue from their rebellion through Jesus life, death, and resurrection, by believing, trusting, and following Jesus as Lord and leader, they will experience forgiveness and the eternal relationship with God that they were created for.

Now a natural objection that could be raised at this point is “How can Hell possibly fit into the purpose and design of God for the universe? If there is a Creator of the universe, why would He make a world where every person would live in relationship with Him and not rebel against Him?” If this question and objection is running through your mind, I want to let you know that you are asking one of the great questions of human history.

And if we were having a conversation at the courtyard coffeehouse, here would be my response: I can’t answer that question because I am not God. I am only a finite being with a finite mind that has been created by God. However, while I cannot say why there is a Hell, I can suggest what the existence of Hell tells us about God.

First, Hell demonstrates God’s holiness and His absolute hatred of evil. When we use the word holy, this word is a church mumbo jumbo talk word that refers to God’s otherness. You see, God is distinctly different and set apart from the rest of the creation in terms of His nature, character, and activity. And because of that reality, we cannot fully wrap our minds around His goodness and our rebellion. But God, in His absolute and perfect goodness, hates evil and Hell demonstrates how set apart God is in terms of His moral purity and goodness.

Second, Hell vindicates God’s perfect justice. The existence of Hell reveals the reality that God’s rightness and justice rules and reigns. Evil will get its due for all eternity, in Hell. Third, Hell shines a spotlight on God’s grace. Hell shines a spotlight on the lengths that God went to rescue us from an eternity separated from Him as a result of our rebellion against Him. Hell is the bill that Jesus paid on the cross when He allowed Himself to be treated as though He lived our selfish and sinful life so that God the Father could treat us as though we lived Jesus perfect life.

You see, if you say that “The God I believe in would never send anyone to Hell”, then you will never know the true depth of the love of the God who reveals Himself in the letters that make up the Bible. The real question isn’t “How could a loving God send people to Hell?” The real question is “How could a holy God, in His absolute and perfect goodness, allow people into Heaven?