Why should we talk about Hell?

It probably goes without saying that non-Christians do not like to talk about Hell.  Of all the doctrines in the Bible, there is none more offensive to them than this one.  You can talk to unbelievers about God’s goodness and God’s love.  You can talk to them about God’s faithfulness and God’s mercy.  You can talk to them about God’s unchanging nature and unfailing truth.  But the moment you bring up the fact that God is righteous and holy and planning to punish them forever in eternity, the conversation is considered closed.  Most lost people cannot tolerate the Biblical doctrine of Hell.

But, unfortunately, many Christians are going down that same road today.  They refuse to talk about God sending sinners to a place of eternal torment.

Consider the following: When was the last time you saw a local church advertise a sermon series on the subject of Hell?  When was the last time you heard a preacher preach on it?  Have you ever listened to a Contemporary Christian song about the Lake of Fire?  Have you ever read a modern book that explained the damnation of the wicked in considerable detail?  It is safe to say that many professing Christians today avoid the topic of Hell as much as the lost world around them.

So why should we talk about it?  If it is such an unpleasant subject, why bring it up?

1. We should talk about Hell because the Bible talks about Hell. 

There is no need to go into great detail here about what the Bible says about Hell because that has been done in another Frequently Asked Question.1  But here are a few passages of Scripture that talk about Hell.  Matthew 5:21-22 says,

You have heard that the ancients were told, “You shall not commit murder” and “Whoever commits murder shall be liable to the court.”  But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever shall say to his brother, “Raca,” shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever shall say, “You fool,” shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell.

Second Thessalonians 1:5-10 says,

This is a plain indication of God’s righteous judgment so that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering.  For after all it is only just for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted and to us as well when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels in flaming fire, dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.

And these will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes to be glorified in His saints on that day, and to be marveled at among all who have believed – for our testimony to you was believed.

Revelation 14:9-11 says,

And another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or upon his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.  And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, those who worship the best and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”

The Bible is very clear about the fact that God is angry with man’s sins and He will punish those sins in Hell if man does not turn to Jesus Christ for forgiveness.2  Because of this, Christians should be clear about this fact as well.  We do not have the option to only teach those passages of Scripture that are pleasing to the ear and soothing to the heart.  We must preach those passages that are frightening to the soul as well.  If we are to call ourselves followers of Jesus, then all of His words must be taught, including the parts that turn people away.  In the words of Martin Luther,

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.  Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.3

The painful subject of Hell does not give us the excuse to throw it away.  The soldier’s loyalty is proven where the battle rages, not where the battle is peaceful.

2. We should talk about Hell because we tend to tone it down. 

While many unbelievers do not believe in a place of eternal damnation, those who do often think it will not be all that bad.  Even Christians tend to think that the eternal suffering of the wicked will be minimal.  We hope that God will take it easy on them.  We naively think that He will lighten their punishment because He is a loving God.  As one man put it about a friend who recently died, “Wherever he is, his next life will have to be better than this one.”

When we say things like this, we minimize God’s holiness.  Isaiah 6:3 says, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory.”  In one of the Apostle John’s visions of Heaven it says,

And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, Who was and Who is and Who is to come” (Rev 4:8).

God is holy.  He is morally perfect.4  He has no stain or tarnish or defect to His nature.  He has never done anything wrong nor could He ever do anything wrong.  But not only that, God will not allow anyone into His presence who does not share this same standard of holiness.  Psalm 24:1-4 tells us that,

The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains,
The world, and those who dwell in it.
For He founded it upon the seas
And established it upon the rivers.

Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?
And who may stand in His holy place?
He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
Who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood
And has not sworn deceitfully.

Only the clean and the pure and the sinless are accepted into Heaven by God.

For the Lord to let a wicked person into Heaven is for Him to tarnish His holiness.  For Him to keep an unrepentant sinner out of Hell is for him to approve of someone who is morally defiled and therefore to defile Himself.  It is to say that God can tolerate a liar.  It is to make the claim that God is not furious at a gossiper or a fornicator or a blasphemer or a coveter.  To say that God will let the wicked into Heaven is to say that He can fellowship and abide with sin.

To downplay Hell is to downplay the Lord’s perfect holiness.  It is to say that He is not morally pure and that He can put up with immorality.  And, because of that, we must talk about Hell.

3. We should talk about Hell because we tend to be ashamed of it. 

Many Christians are ashamed of the doctrine of Hell.  It sounds too judgmental.  It seems too narrow-minded and repulsive to a contemporary audience.  How can a gracious God do that to people?  How can a God of love raise unbelievers from the dead only to send them to a place of torment for all of eternity?5  It sounds horrible to even say it.

So what do we do?  For many of us, we refuse to speak about this aspect of God’s character.  We are embarrassed by it.  It is uncomfortable to say that you believe in something as awful as Hell.  In the eyes of the modern world, it makes you sound like an archaic fundamentalist who stands on a street corner and thumps his Bible at everyone.  So we tend to avoid the topic of Hell like the plague.

But to be ashamed of Hell is to be ashamed of God’s righteousness.  It is to be ashamed of His justice.

Numerous passages in the Bible talk about the justice of God.  Here are a few:

Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly (Gen 18:25)?

The Lord has made Himself known; He has executed judgment.  In the work of His own hands the wicked is ensnared (Ps 9:16).

For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness; the upright will behold His face (Ps 11:7).

Righteous are You, O Lord, and upright are Your judgments (Ps 119:137).

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways are just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride (Dan 4:37).

For the ways of the Lord are right, and the righteous will walk in them, but transgressors will stumble in them (Hos 14:9).

God rewards those who perfectly keep His law and He punishes those who do not.  That is what we mean when we say that God is just.  And when we refuse to speak about Hell, it shows that we are ashamed that the Lord acts justly towards the wicked.

Listen to what the Apostle Paul said about this in Romans 1:16,

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

What part of the Gospel6 was Paul not ashamed by?  Just the part about Heaven?  Just the part about God’s love?  Paul says, “I am not ashamed of any of it.”  “I am not ashamed that God sends the unrighteous to Hell.”  “I am not ashamed that the saints go to Heaven through Jesus Christ.”  “I am not ashamed of any doctrine connected to salvation, including the doctrine of Hell.”

We should have that same attitude.  In fact, Jesus gave us this warning in Luke 9:26,

For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He comes in His glory, and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels.

If we are ashamed of Jesus Christ and His teachings in this life, He will be ashamed of us in the next life.  We should speak about Hell because we do not want our Lord to be ashamed of us in eternity.

4. We should talk about Hell because we tend to ignore it. 

To ignore something is to disregard it or to pay no attention to it.7  And, because we are ashamed of the doctrine of Hell, we tend to do just that.  We tend to talk about salvation without talking about damnation.  We tend to talk about “coming to Christ” or “making your life right with God” without ever talking about the eternal danger that the lost are in.

Contemporary Christian Music and contemporary Christian literature are notoriously bad about doing this.  For example, consider these modern-day lyrics:

God above all the world in motion
God above all my hopes and fears
And I don’t care what the world throws at me now
I’m gonna be alright

Hear the sounds of the generations
Making loud our freedom song
All in all that the world would know Your name
It’s gonna be alright

Cause I know my God saved the day
And I know His word never fails
And I know my God made a way for me
Salvation is here

Salvation is here
Salvation is here and He lives in me
Salvation is here
Salvation that died just to set me free
Salvation is here
Salvation is here and He lives in me
Salvation is here
Cause You are alive and You live in me.8

The song is entitled “Salvation is Here” and it is written by Hillsong.  And in this song about salvation, the artists never discuss what we are saved from.  “God saved the day” and “God made a way for me” but we are never told what God saved the day from or what God made a way for me to do.

For another example of this, Brennan Manning’s book The Ragamuffin Gospel was endorsed by such well-known Christians as Michael W. Smith, Rich Mullins, Michael Card, and Eugene Peterson.  It sold thousands of copies after its release in 1990 and did the same thing again in 2000.  Yet this book about “the Gospel” contains no information about Hell.  The “Good News” is mentioned without any “Bad News.”  In the author’s own words:

Abba [God] is not our enemy.  If we think that, we are wrong . . . Abba does not prefer and promote suffering and pain.  If we think that, we are wrong.  Jesus brings good news about the Father, not bad news.9

At another time in the book, Manning favorably quotes the theologian Paul Tillich as saying this about God’s grace,

You are accepted.  You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know.  Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later.  Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much.  Do not seek for anything, do not perform anything, do not intend anything.  Simply accept the fact that you are accepted.10

Jesus spoke more about Hell than anyone in the Bible.  He gave us the Bad News and the Good News together.  It is His name alone that saves sinners, not some name that we do not know.  But that is not a very popular message today, so it is left out of this book on the “Gospel.”

Hell is left out of these works because it turns people away.  It is offensive.  It is hostile.  It is difficult to get on the New York Times Best-Seller list when you talk about it.  Books on damnation do not sell very well at Wal-Mart.  So contemporary song-writers and contemporary authors leave the subject out of their material altogether.

But in contrast to this, the authors of the Old Testament used more than 20 different words to describe God’s wrath and they referred to it more than 580 times.11  Paul referred to it over and over again as he explained the way of salvation in his letter to the church in Rome.

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness (Rom 1:18).

But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God (Rom 2:5).

What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction (Rom 9:22)?

Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay,” says the Lord (Rom 12:19).

Wrath.  Wrath.  Wrath.  Wrath.  Wrath.  In Paul’s great work on salvation, he talks about wrath 11 times in 16 chapters.  How different is that from the salvation songs we hear on the radio and the books we see in our local Christian book store!

The argument could be made that the God of most 21st Century Christians is altogether wrathless.  He is angered by nothing.  Other than a few “political” sins like abortion or homosexuality, most people think that God will send no one to Hell because there is no sin that makes Him angry enough to do so.  But how different is that from the God of the Bible!

As Leon Morris writes,

We do not like the concept of the wrath of God and we are happy to accept an argument that enables us to get rid of it. But the wrath of God is real and the writers of the New Testament books no less than the Old makes this clear. We must reckon with this wrath.

Unpalatable though it may be, our sins, my sins, are the objects of that wrath. If we are taking our Bible seriously we must realize that every sin is displeasing to God and that unless something is done about the evil we have committed we face ultimately nothing less than divine anger.

God has given us every opportunity, but we have sinned. His wrath is the consequence.12

To ignore Hell and God’s wrath is to ignore the very Word of God.  It is also to ignore our responsibility to teach it . . . all of it.  If God has revealed Himself to mankind in a book, then who are we to pick and choose what to teach and what to leave out?  What right do we have to keep the doctrines we like and throw away the doctrines we don’t?  Paul said in First Corinthians 9:16, “woe is me if I do not preach the gospel.”  In Second Timothy 4:1-2, he gave Timothy this warning,

I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word.

In other passages, Paul warns his hearers against preaching or believing a different Gospel from what he has been teaching them.  In Galatians 1:8-9, he says,

But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!  As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed!

A Gospel without eternal damnation is a different Gospel from the one that Paul taught.  It is a dumbed-down, watered-down, broken-down legalism where man is good enough to earn his way into Heaven.13  It is not grace, it is works righteousness.  When God’s wrath and punishment are left out of the message of salvation, then the idea is conveyed that sinners can earn their way into Heaven.  There is no penalty for their moral failings and, therefore, they can march right into God’s presence when they die.  The sacrifice of Jesus Christ is not needed for them.  They can get there on their own.  Jesus died as an example for them, not as an atonement14 because they did not need an atonement.15  When the doctrine of Hell is thrown away, so is the power and necessity of the cross.

We must preach about Hell because of our tendency to ignore it.

5. We should talk about Hell because we tend to forget it. 

If you downplay something and are ashamed of it and ignore it for a long enough period of time, you will eventually forget it.  You will no longer remember it.  And one inevitable consequence of doing that is to have your evangelism16 dry up and die.  Your attempts to bring non-Christians to Jesus and your prayers for your lost friends will stop when you forget about Hell.

Why?  Because if you forget about Hell, there is no point in evangelizing anyone.  If everyone is going to Heaven anyway, then let them remain Buddhists.  If we are all going to the same place when we die, then leave the Muslims alone.  If no one is going to suffer from God’s anger in Hell, then let the wicked continue to live immoral lives.  Let them continue to be atheists and agnostics.  Let them abuse alcohol and take drugs.  Let them be dead-beat parents and adulterers.  This life will only be a short one anyway.  Let them enjoy it.  Let them live it up.  If they live a spiritually useless life on this earth, it is no big deal because, once they die, they will be in a better place.

If you forget Hell, you will forget your evangelism because there will be no point in doing it.  As Paul writes in First Corinthians 15:19, “If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.”  If there is no eternal reward for a life with Christ, then Paul says that Christians are to be pitied.  In First Corinthians 15:32, he says it another way,

If from human motives I fought with wild beasts at Ephesus, what does it profit me?  If the dead are not raised, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.

If there is no future reward and no future punishment, then we should enjoy life while we are here. “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”  If being a Christian will not save you from damnation, then Paul says to avoid being a Christian.  Following Jesus is just too hard.  Denying yourself and giving up your rights and fighting your sinful flesh and repenting and humbling yourself is not worth it if there is no eternal reward.  If there is no threat of Hell and no future reward in Heaven, then what is the point of following Jesus Christ?  Paul says that there isn’t one.

Listen to how Paul described some of his evangelistic labors in Second Corinthians 11:21-28,

To my shame I must say that we have been weak by comparison.  But in whatever respect anyone else is bold – Ispeak in foolishness – I am just as bold myself.

Are they Hebrews?  So am I.  Are theyIsraelites?  So am I.  Are theydescendants of Abraham?  So am I.  Are they servants of Christ? – I speak as if insane – I more so; in far more labors, in far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death.

Five times I received from the Jews thirty-nine lashes.  Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, a night and a day I have spent in the deep.  I have been on frequent journeys, in dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren; I have been in labor and hardship, through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches.

If someone asked Paul, “Would you go through all of this trouble again if you know that these people were going to Heaven anyway?” it is safe to assume that he would not say, “Of course I would.  Can’t you see that I lived a wonderful life?”  “I enjoyed getting flogged and stoned and whipped.  I took great pleasure in suffering from hunger and exhaustion and fatigue.”  “I found it exhilarating to face death every day so that I could help others achieve a higher standard of living.”

Paul would not say that.  That is insanity.  He would say that if these people were fine on their own then he would have left them alone.  He would not have gone through all of the pain and abuse unless he knew that their souls were in jeopardy.  He came to warn them because they were headed to an eternity of judgment and he suffered for them to keep them from it.

If there is no threat of Hell, then there is no reason to evangelize.  If there is no eternal torment, then “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”

We must speak about Hell because we tend to forget it.  And, when we do, the consequences are horrendous.

  1. See the FAQ, “What is Hell Like?” []
  2. Lk 13:3; Jn 14:6; Acts 4:12; Rom 10:9-10. []
  3. Quoted in Francis A. Schaeffer’s The God Who is There in The Complete Works of Francis A. Schaeffer, Volume One (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 1985) 11. []
  4. Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Carlisle, Penn.: The Banner of Truth Trust, 2003 ed.) 73.  This definition is taken from several descriptions of God’s holiness in Berkhof’s Systematic Theology.  Berkhof writes that God’s holiness “has a specifically ethical aspect in Scripture.”  It includes such ideas as “absolute unapproachability,” absolute overpoweringness,” or “awful majesty.” []
  5. Jn 5:28-29. []
  6. New Bible Dictionary, Third Edition, ed. by J. D. Douglas (Downsers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1996) 426.  The word “Gospel” means “Good News.”  “The gospel is the good news that God in Jesus Christ has fulfilled his promises to Israel, and that a way of salvation has been opened to all.”  For more information about the Gospel, see the FAQ, “What is the Gospel?” []
  7. Webster’s New World Dictionary, ed. by Michael Agnes (New York: Wiley Publishing, Inc., 2003) 321. []
  8. www.christian-gospelmusiclyrics.com/praise-worship/hillsong-united/salvation-is-here-lyrics.html as of 1/13/11. []
  9. The Ragamuffin Gospel (Sisters, Ore.: Multnomah Publishers, 2000 ed.) 76. []
  10. Ibid., 29. []
  11. Leon Morris, The Apostolic Preaching of the Cross, Third Edition (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1965) 149. []
  12. The Atonement: Its Meaning & Significance (Downers Grove, Ill.: IVP Academic, 1983) 176. []
  13. Alan Cairns, Dictionary of Theological Terms (Greenville, S.C.: Ambassador Emerald International, 2002) 262.  Legalism is “the dogma of salvation by works, the heresy that man must earn a place in heaven by his personal righteousness.” []
  14. Ibid., 44.  The atonement is “the satisfaction of divine justice by the Lord Jesus Christ in His active and passive obedience (i.e., His life and death), which procures for His people a perfect salvation.” []
  15. Ibid., 420-421.  The teaching that Jesus died as an example and not as a sacrifice is known as Socianism. []
  16. New Bible Dictionary, 347.  To evangelize someone is “to announce news” to them or to “preach the Gospel” to them.  It is to tell them what Jesus Christ has accomplished on the cross and in His empty tomb. []

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