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We have seen that much of what we know about hell comes to us from the lips of Jesus. One of Jesus' main teachings concerning the doctrine of hell is His parable of the sheep and the goats, found in Matthew 25. It reads:
When the son of man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, "Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me." Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, "Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?" And the King will answer and say to them, "Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me."
Then He will also say to those on the left hand, "Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me." (Matt. 25: 31- 43)
In the previous chapter, we talked about some of the images of hell that Jesus uses in His parable of the talents. Here, in the parable of the sheep and the goats, Jesus uses another image—an image of separation. He talks about the King who will separate kingdoms and people just as a shepherd divides sheep from goats. The sheep refer to those who have been obedient, who have been followers of Christ; they will inherit the kingdom of heaven that
was prepared for them from the foundation of the world. The goats, on the other hand, will be excluded from the presence of the company of God and His angels in heaven, and they will be sent away into everlasting fire.
What Jesus is describing here is the concept of judgment. It is interesting to me that the New Testament word for "judgment" is the Greek word krisis, from which we get the English word crisis. It comes directly over into our language from the Greek. The supreme crisis for humanity will be the crisis of the last judgment. That will be the time of separation.
Behind and beneath the New Testament concept of hell stand some other ideas that we must understand if this is to make sense to us. First of all, there is the concept of the justice of God. We say that God is just and that He judges according to His own holiness and perfect righteousness. God is the Governor of the universe. He rules over all people, and He holds every human being personally accountable to Himself. If Jesus Christ taught anything in His earthly ministry, it is that there will be a final judgment for human beings—that every one of us will be called into account before the presence of God, and we will be judged by His perfect righteousness and His perfect law.
When we look at the imagery the New Testament uses to describe the response of sinners to the charges leveled against them by the perfect and holy God at the last judgment, the primary image is that of silence. The New Testament says that every mouth will be stopped because there is nothing a person can say to defend himself against a judge who is perfectly just and omniscient. There's no reason to try to lie our way through the trial, because we can't fool our Creator; He has a perfect record of everything we have ever done, said, and even thought. As the Old Testament says about God, "There is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether" (Ps. 139:4). Jesus warns us, "For every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment" (Matt. 12:36).
Think about that. God is going to hold us individually accountable not only for everything we've ever done, but for everything we've ever said— even casual remarks, off-hand statements, and idle words will be brought into the judgment. If our idle words are going to be brought into the judgment, how much more will those words that we speak with great seriousness come before His bar of justice. So we have to fear, first of all, a God who is just and holy. The author of Hebrews says, "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?" (Heb. 2:3a). Of course, he is
saying that there is no escape. Then the warning is added that our God is a consuming fire (Heb. 12:29).
We don't like to think that we will be held accountable for our actions in this world. A man once said to me: "R. C., I've known lots of doctors. I once knew a doctor who was a coroner. He said to me that he had performed thousands of autopsies over his career and that he had never seen a soul." My friend thought he was being clever and profound. He was making this point: "I don't believe that there is a soul. I don't believe that there is personal survival beyond the grave, so I can eat, drink, and be merry without any fear of ultimate consequences." I asked, "Whatever made you think that a coroner or any other earthly instrument would be able to detect or discern something that is immaterial?"
Beyond that attitude, there is an almost universal assumption in American culture that if there is life after death, then everyone's going to go to the same place, to the eternal blessedness of heaven. Nothing turns a sinner into a saint faster than death. When we lay to rest the most reprobate person, we speak in glowing terms of confidence that he is enjoying felicity and peace in heaven, when, in fact, he may have just entered the gates of hell. But to contemplate his condition under that scenario is more than we can humanly bear. One of the reasons there is such a profound emotional and visceral response to the doctrine of hell is that it's difficult for anyone to contemplate another human being going there.
Even when it comes to the most despicable person I can think of, I can't enjoy the thought of his being in hell. Sometimes a movie will feature a villain who is utterly despicable. Perhaps the movie shows a little child sleeping in her bedroom at night, and then the camera shifts to the presence of a kidnapper sneaking into the house, coming up to the room, abducting the child, and then killing the child. Later, as he is about to make another attack on a child, the police are bearing down on him, trying to stop him. As you become involved in the movie, you are rooting for the police to get there in time to stop this person from committing another horrendous crime against a child. Finally, as the villain is about to kill the child, at the last second, a police officer shoots and kills the man. Then there is an audible response from the people in the theater. They cheer that the bad guy got his just desserts. But it's one thing for us to cheer the punishment of a sinner in this world. It's another thing to cheer the idea of any human being undergoing eternal, relentless punishment at the hands of God. So we turn
away from such an idea out of a commitment to our basic humanity and our basic human concern about the wellbeing of others.
But what do we do with the emphatic teaching of Christ and of the other authors of the New Testament books, who insist there will be a judgment and a separation, that some people will enter heaven and others will be cast into that place of outer darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth?
I believe the most terrifying sermon ever preached was the Sermon on the Mount, because Jesus ends the sermon by warning the people that "Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!'" (Matt. 7:22-23). Jesus says that there are some people whom He and the Father will reject on the occasion of the last judgment.
Furthermore, nothing in Scripture gives us the slightest hint that there will be a second chance after death, so the longer we postpone repenting of our sin and fleeing to Christ, the more perilous is our condition. Tonight our souls may be required of us (Luke 12:20). We can't assume that everyone is just simply going to walk peaceably into heaven and escape the judgment— not if we're to take the teaching of Jesus Himself seriously. He speaks of separation and of a crisis, the crisis of the judgment of God.
The final verses of Matthew 25 read this way: "Then they also will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?' Then He will answer them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Matt. 25:44-46).
I once spoke on Sunday morning to the national convention of the Christian Booksellers Association. There were about six thousand people in the hall, and I ventured to speak on the subject of salvation, asking the question, "What is salvation?" I thought I was taking a great risk. I thought: "I'm insulting these people's intelligence. I'm speaking here to the choir, as it were, to people who are involved in producing resources for Christian growth, and I'm talking about the most elementary concept there is in Christianity—the concept of salvation." Still, I wasn't completely sure that
just because my hearers were involved in the business of Christian retailing that they all were trusting Christ for their eternal destinies. So I went ahead with my talk, and I posed this question to that congregation: "Since the Bible is always talking about salvation, from what are we being saved?" In the Bible, the term saved is used in many different contexts. If you're restored to health from a threatening illness, your life is saved. If an army escapes sure defeat in battle, they experience salvation. But the fundamental meaning of saved is to have escaped some calamity. So when we speak about ultimate salvation in the Scriptures, we're talking about an escape from the ultimate calamity. And what is that ultimate calamity? It is the wrath of God visited justly on those who have remained hostile to Him.
So I concluded my sermon at the booksellers' convention this way: "That from which you are saved ultimately is God." We like to think of God as the Savior, as the One who redeems us from judgment, and indeed, He is our Savior if we have genuinely repented and cast ourselves on the mercy of Christ. So God is the Author of salvation, and yet, to be saved, in the final analysis, is not simply to be saved by Him, but to be saved from Him, because the ultimate crisis, the worst calamity a person could ever face, is the judgment of a holy God.
It's not that we're afraid of being brought before a corrupt judge who might punish us beyond what we deserve. Rather, we fear being visited by a judge who is just, One who will judge us perfectly according to what we deserve, according to what we have earned, according to our merit. Of course, the Bible makes clear that the only merit we bring to the throne of God in the last judgment is de-merit. The only thing that we have earned at the hands of perfect justice is perfect punishment.
But we're at ease in Zion. Preachers aren't preaching hell. This message of Christ has been all but deleted from the New Testament in our day, and we say, "We don't have anything to worry about from God because God is so loving that He is going to save everyone." Well, if He is going to save everyone, it will not be without a serious rebuke against His only begotten Son for teaching falsely that there will be separation, that there will be curse as well as blessing, that there will be punishment as well as rewards, and that hell was created for the Devil, for his angels, and for all who willingly participate with them.
I used to train people for Evangelism Explosion, and we used two diagnostic questions to engage people in discussion. The first diagnostic
question we used was this: "Have you come to the place in your spiritual life or in your thinking where you know for sure that when you die, you will go to heaven?" I've asked that question to literally hundreds and hundreds of people, and most of them answered by saying, "No, I'm not sure about that." Once, however, I got a particular response I'll never forget. When I asked this question to one man, he looked me in the eye, and he was trembling. He wasn't being facetious and he wasn't trying to be a smart aleck. He said: "No. I know that I'm going to hell, and it scares me to death." He was on the road to hell. When I shared the gospel of Christ with him, he repented of his sins and became a Christian. But it was interesting to me that God had already begun to work in him, to convict him of his sin, and to give him a certain healthy fear for what would lie ahead in his existence if he did not repent. We all need to have that fear of the ultimate crisis of judgment that lies ahead for each of us.