This is a question to which almost all of those reading this book already have an answer. Whether that answer is truly reflective of the biblical witness is what we will deal with.
Would a loving God really let anyone go to hell? Our text seems to indicate the answer is "Yes." The righteous will be rewarded with an eternity of comfort and peace and the sinners are going to burn. Some of you, I am sure, would be content to leave it at that. After all, that is what you learned years ago. Others of you will not be content with that because you cannot imagine God being unforgiving, even of the most heinous sin.
Note one thing about the lesson here: The story does not say that Lazarus was particularly righteous, only that he was dirt poor. It does not say that the rich man was a particularly vile sinner, only that he failed to notice and do anything about Lazarus' need. Jesus' emphasis here is not on the fate of people after death, but the absolute imperative of caring for the needy while we are still alive. If folks took that as seriously as they do the picture we get of the punishments of hell, poverty would have long ago been wiped out.
But poverty is not the focus of our attention now, even though that really is the primary focus of the parable. Rather, it is this picture we have of divine punishment. This one story has done more to influence our long-held concept of eternal damnation than any other in scripture. The question is how are we to understand it in light of what we have come to know about God? Would a loving God really let someone, anyone, go to a place of endless torment?
The tradition, of course, is clear. Absolutely! But these days, we do not hear that very often. Quite frankly, many people believe hell does not exist. In the minds of many, hell is only an expletive: hell, yes; hell, no.
Is that legitimate? The tradition surely says that there is a literal, awful, fiery place where unsaved sinners will spend eternity. What about the Bible? What does that say? To be honest, not a great deal. In the Old Testament, there is nothing about a place of eternal torment for the damned. Life after death for everyone — good or evil — is seen as some sort of shadowy existence in a place known as Sheol but not much more. There are a number of Old Testament references like that but nothing about unending torture, even for the worst of this world.
Actually, the first time we run into a place of after-death misery is in the literature of Persia (modern-day Iran). There we find a belief that says the wicked will ultimately be judged by being placed in a stream of molten metal.
By the time we get to the New Testament, we find something new. There are three different Greek words that are used to talk about the afterlife. One is Hades, which is basically the New Testament equivalent of Sheol — the place of the dead. This is where the rich man and Lazarus of our parable are. The only difference between the Old and New Testament concepts is that there is now a division there between the good and the bad.
Another is Tartarus. We run into that only once (in 2 Peter 2:4) in describing a place to which fallen angels are condemned.
The third word is Gehenna. Gehenna was the name of a ravine south of Jerusalem. Children had been sacrificed to the god Moloch there during the days of Ahaz and Manasseh. But when King Josiah ascended the throne, he ordered that it be desecrated. It was turned into a rubbish heap where fire burned continuously. Everything there had been consigned for destruction. Thus, the "city dump" came to be identified in the Jewish mind as the perfect symbol of God's final rejection of wickedness. This was Jesus' description. Of the twelve times in the New Testament that we run across the word Gehenna, eleven of them are on the lips of Jesus. How much of the descriptions Jesus gave are meant to be taken literally is an open question. After all, the pictures are self-contradictory — complete darkness and burning flame are mutually exclusive. The language is symbolic, symbolic of a fate which no one would want.
Then what does the Bible make of hell? Scripture is simply not definitive. There is an indication that there will be different degrees of punishment (Matthew 23:14), and of course, simple justice would demand that — the punishment has to fit the crime. Perhaps Dante had the right idea in The Divine Comedy. He portrays sinners living in hell in circumstances designed to show the nature of their sins: Gluttons must lie in the filth of a pig sty; hypocrites go about in heavy cloaks that are gilded over; traitors (who coldly planned their treachery) are more or less encased in ice. They have effectively made their own punishment, their own hell.
To be sure, there are times when punishment is helpful, and every decent parent knows it. But no decent parent would say punishment that does not have correction and finally restoration as its aim has any redeeming value. Surely it can have no value for the God whose very purpose for a fallen world has been, since the beginning of time, the redemption of creation. What I am leading up to should be obvious by now. The more I study, the more I dig, the more I become convinced that the God of love whom we have come to know in Jesus would not condemn someone to the kind of hell our tradition has always described.
Does that mean there is a possibility that everyone will eventually be saved? Scripture seems to speak with two minds on the subject. There are places where it seems to indicate "Yes" (John 12:32; Romans 11:32; 1 Corinthians, 15:24-28; 1 Timothy 2:4-6; and more), and there are other places where it indicates "No." If scripture is not crystal clear, we had best not be making any absolute statements. However, if we take seriously the freedom of choice God has given us, it seems we are forced to conclude that there is a possibility that some will continue to reject God and hang on to their sins, no matter what. As C. S. Lewis wrote, "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done.' "[1]
I have seen Gehenna. It was on a trip Christie and I took to the holy land some years ago. We were on a tour bus driving by the wall of the old city of Jerusalem when our guide pointed our attention to an area out the window to our right — Gehenna. I was surprised. I would have figured it to be an awful, smoky, smelly dump, but it was a park: tall trees, green grass, playing fields for youngsters' ball games. The fires have long since gone out. Unending Gehenna? Apparently not.
If our witness is to include the reality of hell at all, perhaps it would be better explained like this: God, in divine love, wants everyone, but God will force no one. And because that love is so great, God refuses to condemn someone to the garden of heaven who is allergic to flowers.
But allergies can be cured, even spiritual allergies, and that is our good news. The medicine is there. The remedy was carefully and lovingly prepared almost 2,000 years ago on a hill outside Jerusalem called Calvary. All that is necessary now is to trust the doctor. His name? Jesus Christ. How much does it cost? Nothing. It is paid for by insurance: Wooden Cross, a subsidiary of Eternal Life. And the premium has already been taken care of by the agent. It is the best plan on the market today.
The doctor even makes house calls. He says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in ..." (Revelation 3:20). Would a loving God really let anyone go to hell? The answer is "Yes," even though it might not be the kind of hell we have tended to picture. Even that is not necessary. Thank goodness! Thank God!
1. C. S. Lewis, The Great Divorce (New York; MacMillan, 1946), p. 72.