Point 3: Hell is the Final Triumph of Good over Evil
Three months ago, thousands of voices in the United States and Canada erupted in unified fury at the decision of a grand jury in Missouri not to indict Officer Darren Wilson for the murder of Michael Brown. When given voice to their fury, protesters bemoaned what they saw as justice deferred. They were denied not only the verdict they desired but the opportunity for a case to be made. The state prosecutor released documents to the public in an effort to assure that due process was indeed respected in this case, and justice was accomplished, not averted.
We are all too familiar with the pain of justice deferred. We rejoice when the guilty finally get theirs but know that all too often, they don’t. The prophets (Jeremiah 12:1-4, Habakkuk 1:1-4,12-17) and the poets (Psalm 94:1-6) of the Old Testament wrestle with God over this. Why do the evil prosper and the good suffer?
We generally fail, however, to bring this complaint inwards. Why do we get away with some of the things we do? Sometimes we bear the consequences of our error, but often we get away with. We are quick to ask why the guy who cuts us off on the highway going 140km/h doesn’t get pulled over but not why we continually get away with our occasional (or habitual) forays into prohibited driving. We make excuses for ourselves so we don’t have to think of ourselves as lawbreakers. Yes I parked in the handicap spot but it was cold and I was only going to be a minute. As a general rule, we assume the worst of others and the best of ourselves.
We never verbalize this but we would love for sweeping justice to spread through the earth excluding ourselves. Jesus exposed this in a story recounted in John’s gospel. His opponents brought to Him a woman caught in the act of adultery and asked Him to pronounce judgment. Jesus replied with one of the most famous sayings in scripture: “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7).
Can we accept ourselves as sinners? Perhaps. Sinners with excuses but sinners nonetheless. In the Old Testament, God instituted a system to deal with individual sins, with people receiving atonement though the sacrifice of livestock. As the financial cost of wrongdoing began to add up, the depth of the people’s sin was exposed. It was expensive to deal with sins individually, but not to deal with them was to be separated from God. What was needed was a way to atone for sin once for all.
This is why the cross of Jesus is at the centre of the Christian religion. Jesus comes down, lives a sinless life, and takes upon Himself our sin paying for it with His life. He offers us the most one-sided exchange in all history: He gives us His righteousness and takes in return our sinfulness. The moment we accept this exchange is what Christians call salvation, though it takes a lifetime to grow into the fullness of Jesus’ righteousness. God places His Holy Spirit inside believers, transforming us moment by moment- slowly and painstakingly- towards the perfection of Jesus Christ.
Jesus’ appearance raises the stakes. Before He came, the most moral members of society would point out how many of God’s laws they had kept. But Jesus comes to be THE way and nothing short of His righteousness is acceptable. If we reject Jesus, then we must be perfect as He is because there is now no other way to atone for sin.
Jesus speaking: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. He who hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.” – John 15:22-24
Jesus here isn’t saying that people were perfect before He came, but that His presence makes them guilty of flat out rejecting God. The oath of allegiance we swear to God is not a vague commitment to good deeds, but conscious submission to Jesus as ruler of our lives. If we reject Jesus or accept Him as any less than God in the flesh, our guilt before God is sealed.
The Christian religion gives us a glimpse at the end of the world as we know it in what we refer to as the apocalyptic texts in the Bible. These can be somewhat difficult to decipher and there’s a lot of disagreement about what events certain passages are referring to, but one thing that is eminently clear is that God wages war against all manner of sin and He wins (Revelation 19:11-21). The world is divided into two camps: those who fight with God and those who fight against Him. Those who fight with God don’t do so because they are nicer, smarter, more virtuous, or better in any way; they are simply those who have accepted the rule of God over their lives.
For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. – 1 Corinthians 1:26-29
Heaven is full of these weak and foolish. Hell isn’t a indictment on the relative quality of one’s humanity, but a reality because we are broken, selfish humans. And while it will never be an attractive doctrine, we can’t deny that God’s love and justice necessitates that He punish wrongdoing. In His grace, He has chosen to delay the punishment and to give a way out, but it must eventually come to be. We need not be tied to any physical descriptions of the place, but we cannot deny that all who reject God’s authority in this life will experience life apart from His common grace in the next.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. – Jude 1:24-25
theologytranslated 