“The Reality of Hell”
My daily Bible reading took me to Luke 12:5 (NKJV) where our Lord declared: But I show you whom you should fear. Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him.
For years, I interpreted this verse as a reference to Satan’s power to kill since Jesus called Satan a murderer from the beginning (Jn. 8:44). It seems logical to fear Satan as a murderer. My views were challenged by the NKJV, my choice of translations. The NKJV’s practice of putting divine pronouns into capitals indicates that the scholars believed Jesus was addressing God as the One who kills and has the power to cast into hell. After giving much thought to this subject, it began to dawn upon me that God alone (as Judge) has power to cast souls into hell.
Some argue that a God of love would never cast anyone into hell. Such arguments fail to grasp that hell represents God’s grace toward those who love Him. Sober reflections upon hell will drive us to conclude that hell is just and reasonable. Hell is a divine necessity if God’s children are to going to be saved from the eternal scourge of sin, the devil and all of his evil!
To understand hell’s origin, we must understand that in eternity past God existed in perfect glory in heaven. Sin was unknown until Satan and his followers chose to rebel against God. Hell was God’s emergency measure to protect heaven from the spiritual scourge of sin. God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness to be reserved for judgement (2 Pet. 2:4). Hell came into existence by God’s grace (power) to preserve His holiness in heaven! If God had not separated Himself from Satan and his evil spirits, God’s glorious heaven would have become as dark and miserable as the present world of sin over which Satan now rules (2 Cor. 4:4).
Just as no kitchen can remain healthy without utilizing a garbage pail, the holiness of God’s dwelling place cannot exist without a cosmic garbage pail in which God may deposit the contaminating trash of sin. Hell was created for the devil and his angels (Matt. 25:41). God lovingly desires that no soul of man be lost in hell (2 Pet. 3:9). However, those who choose Satan over Jesus as Lord must eternally suffer the indescribable consequences of their sad choice. Someone made an acrostic out of the word “Bible”: “Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth”. God’s holy word imparts His inspired instructions on how to escape hell and go to heaven with Jesus.
In summary, our holy God must separate Himself from all sin and iniquity. Hell was created by God’s grace to preserve the purity of His heavenly dwelling place. Those who choose to yield themselves to the evil influence of Satan will one day be sentenced to his eternal destiny as the spirit of evil. How sad it is that any precious soul created in God’s holy image would become contaminated by the spirit that works in the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:2). Though God’s will is to save man, His grace alone can save us from sin, Satan, and the spiritual garbage pail of hell!
God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (Jn. 3:16). To save souls from an eternal hell, God sent His Son to collect the pay checks everyone has earned as all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). The wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). God’s justice demands that our “sin wages” be collected. No one would serve a boss who lacks the integrity to pay the full paycheck earned! Our God also cannot remain “just” and refuse to pay the wages of sin. The good news is that Jesus, the perfect Son of Man, never earned sin’s wages (Heb. 4:15). He “died for our sins” (1 Cor. 15:3) to collect our paychecks!
On Calvary Jesus suffered hell for us. Hell is, as was the cross, a place of torment (Lk. 16:23). Hell, like the cross, is a place of great thirst (Lk. 16:24). Hell, as was Jesus’ cross, is a place of sin, darkness and separation from the Father of lights (James 1:17; Matt. 27:45; 2 Pet. 2:4; 2 Cor. 5:21). Hell is as real as sin! If there is no hell, Satan is a figment of man’s darkest imagination! If hell is not “eternal torment”, human spirits are not created in God’s eternal image! Hell is just as real as heaven. If hell is not eternal, heaven also is not eternal. You can’t argue one without the other. We are eternal spirits running across the island of time at the rapid pace of one 24 hour day at a time. One of these days we will reach the shores of eternal reward or eternal punishment. If there is no “eternal hell”, we should all “eat and drink for tomorrow we die!” (1 Cor. 15:32)
Is it any wonder that the our Lord teaches us to Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him (Lk. 12:5). Physical death is the curse God has placed upon this world of sin. Each of us (righteous or evil) has a standing appointment with the grim reaper of physical death (Heb. 9:27). We may fear the “unknowns” of the temporal death of the body; we should especially fear the eternal death of the soul and spirit in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death (Rev. 21:8).
By Ralph Weinhold