Is Hell Really Real? A Meditation
Background
It has been a most difficult week. Besides my usual cardiac symptoms, I have come down with excruciating arthritis in both knees, making mobility at times extremely difficult (sceptics can see for themselves: https://youtube.com/shorts/DODU270n4NQ?si=o4LN1McDEQKOyaFJ). Nevertheless, the reality is that if we are experiencing something scripture testifies was earlier experienced by Jesus, as both climactic sufferer and “Lord of all” (Ps 22:14; Acts 10:36), “the testimony of Jesus” will never fail us. My main point: in all life’s circumstances God will always speak something about his Son (Rev 19:10), and the tougher the circumstance the more profound the revelation. This teaching is based on middle of the night experiences when I was feeling very “unspiritual” (Rom 12:1) and distant from the Lord. It is not primarily a piece of theo-logic.
Introduction
Once upon a time there was nothing extraordinary about the message of hell in Australia. Today however, eternal conflagration is very rarely publicly expounded, not only in sophisticated liberal churches, but especially in our seeker-sensitive megachurches who profess, in every other way, to be “Bible-believing”. This represents a far more profound loss than most Christians have realised.
Losing Hell
In his significant recent volume, The Day the Revolution Began, popular Evangelical author N.T. Wright satirises Western Christianity’s “Platonising” of the final human state in terms of “getting to heaven” and “escaping hell”. This has led to nothing short of a “paganising” of the gospel. If you sing, “And on that cross, when Jesus died, The wrath of God was satisfied” you believe in God as a “bloodthirsty tyrant” (pp.38-39). Leaving aside theological and historical questions, what is at stake here is deeper than any logic. The imposing Christian scientist Blaise Pascal once commented, “The heart has reasons that reason does not know”. (Likewise revivalist Jonathan Edwards’ (https://www.jonathan-edwards.org/ReligiousAffections.pdf ) The “heart theology” of these great thinkers did not elevate the primacy of the emotional life, but was grounded in the profound biblical truth, “Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” (Prov 4:23 cf. Luke 6:45; Heb 4:11-12). Our foundational problem today is not a lack of fine theology, but a lack of heart-based living, a deficit of “guts” (visceral life) so to speak. Whenever Jesus is “moved with compassion” (Matt 14:14; 15:32 etc. https://benhein.us/compassion-from-the-gut/; a twisting of the intestines), something marvellous and miraculous happened e.g., feeding the multitude.
Deeper than Reason
In our city newspaper (West Australian 23/11/23 pp. 1, 5) references recently appeared in bold red type to residents escaping the flaming “hell” of local fires. This illustrates that “hell” is still a live metaphor that immediately communicates meaning. No other word will do to describe the terror fire imparts. Meditating on this, my mind went back to reading the Good News Bible in 1972, whose diagram of the terrible destruction of the world system by fire is indelibly imprinted on my memory: “when they see the smoke of her burning. 10 They will stand far off, in fear of her torment, and say, “Alas! Alas! You great city, you mighty city, Babylon! For in a single hour your judgment has come.”” (Rev 18:9-10). Whilst smoke from the local fires could still be smelled in the air across Perth, what fired my imagination far more potently was the fact that the saints of old knew, in like measure, that the experience of sins forgiven, and the fires of hell, bear the quality of eternity (Matt 18:8). Such things can never depart from an impacted conscience. How then can we be so untouched? To turn it all around: “The question isn’t whether God is a Person, but whether we are?” (Karl Barth). If hell is as real as so-called “Bible believing” people say it is, how can we be so unfeeling and so infrequent in our prayers for the lost? Our humanity is on trial, and in being found wanting we must turn to Christ for healing.
Back to Jesus
Drawing close to Jerusalem, Jesus broke down over its impending destruction, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! 35 Behold, your house is forsaken.” (Luke 13:34-35). His anguish and trepidation at the impending Roman destruction of the holy city must be seen as a foreboding of the Final annihilation of the evil metropolis of this world (Rev 18). Not even a single stone of today’s London, Paris, New York, Tokyo, Beijing…Perth will be left as a memorial throughout eternity, so total will be the cleansing of the universe. “I make all things new” (Rev 21:5). This universal cleansing is already true in Christ’s blood as the Lamb, “who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). I sense the Lord has finally taught me why comfortable Western Christianity is permanently lulled and “deceived” (Rev 12:9) into a state of spiritual blindness about eternal loss (Mark 3:29).
Through The Wall of Fear
On his way to “spill his guts” before God on the cross, “why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34), Jesus must pass through a force field of fear in Gethsemane. He must be traumatised (Luke 24:26) by the upcoming wrath of God, ““Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”” (Mark 14:36 cf. Jer 25:15) in order to complete his total identification with alienated humanity. Here we see his deepest intimacy with the Father and immersion in fullest terror, to “make perfect” (Heb 2:10; 5:9) his call to become the sufficient Saviour and Mediator of all (1 Tim 2:5). Seeing this unique combination of sonly virtues was not a new revelation. What was unique however was sensing that it had graciously been given me empowering my passing through a state of extreme paranoia/“force field of terror” as a 21 year old in coming forward to receive Christ. (Words fail me to describe what I once was like!)
Conclusion and Application
In asking the Lord, “What have you given me this insight now, and not years ago?”, he incontestably replied, “You have always sensed in yourself some level of ability to commit to my purposes.” (“synergism” they call it). Our Lord Jesus truly said, “Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5). The actual “fear of hell” that led me to salvation in Christ so long ago is something I could never wish on my worst enemy, it is so indescribably dreadful. Yet without it few will ever turn to the Lord. Hell can be experienced as real in Australia once more, but only through the painful intercession of saints reduced to radical disability and disempowerment who are moved by the Spirit to cry out in mercy those lost and blinded to sin. Will you join me on this radical journey of true discipleship.