What About Hell? Well, What About It?

"... Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?" (Gen. 18:25, ESV).
"For he doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men" (Lam. 3:33, KJV). 

NB:  JUSTICE DELAYED IS NOT JUSTICE DENIED!  

I heard an anecdote of a child asking the parent what the word heck was, and was told that it was where you go when you don't believe in Gosh!  Many people feel so uncomfortable about hell that they avoid the subject and it isn't even part of their vocabulary. In fact, this is the doctrine that probably gives Christianity a bad rap and people become antagonistic.  The word is often avoided in polite company and euphemisms are used, just as for death itself.  We're all guilty of not taking it seriously, even trivializing it or correcting someone's diction, even when offended.  We don't want to admit publically it exists because people object--a way of showing tact and sensitivity.  But the truth can be offensive.  Even the heathen will bid someone go there when they want to curse them, take revenge, or get even.  Sometimes it seems that at some time everyone wishes there was a hell, even if they don't believe in God--just for a place for their enemies to go. You may even hear an atheist tell you to go there when angry!

Now, God is also uncomfortable about hell; yes, He created it for the devil and his fallen angels and it's the "other place" where people realize who they wanted to be for eternity apart from God; however, God had no choice (what's He to do?) because He is holy and just and cannot tolerate evil but must judge it.  If He overlooked it without retribution, He wouldn't be just!  There is no other place to go as an alternative final abode; either one is with God or separated for Him forever--no middle ground of neutrality or no-man's land. 

The punishment and this is not a place to learn a lesson or to be reformed like a prison, but a place of comeuppance--being dealt their due desserts.  But God is just and people are not punished beyond what strict justice mandates and the more one knew to do right, the more accountable they are, that of whom much is given, much is required also.  There is final equity in hell for the just punishment of the lost or condemned. People in hell will not be able to repent, it's not a place of people changing their minds concerning their lives and lack of faith in God, for they will still insist that they are right and God wrong and accuse Him, instead of owning up to their own failings and evils.  You would think people would realize their failures, but they will not and only be hardened and committed in their animosity toward God. Repentance is the gift of God and a matter of grace, but there's no grace in hell; as it says in Dante's Inferno, "All ye who enter here abandon all hope!"

If we eliminate hell from our doctrine, Christianity would be a lot more palatable to the infidel and some even think that that is the weakness of the faith--this teaching. They may want to be apologetic for God, protecting His reputation, but hell is real whether we preach it or not; Jesus mentioned it twice as much as heaven and the same word for everlasting was used to describe it--it's not annihilation or the grave as cults lead one to believe.  Hell is a necessary doctrine because it must be  If God is just and didn't punish sin it would mean He has weakness or is nonchalant or not holy.  But God is almighty and holy and can do something about what offends Him.  Sin isn't just something that God can overlook like we can, because God is allergic to sin and good and evil are antithetical to God and they cannot co-exist.

The torture of hell might be that this is the place where there are no rules and people get what they always wanted, but the real hell of it is that God isn't' there and they will realize that God's presence is what gives us joy in life and the ability to live life to the fullest.  Just like it wasn't good for man to be alone and that's why God created Eve, hell could be a place of ultimate solitariness where one must contemplate forever what he did and have no one to blame but himself.  They will have to live with their depraved self without any redeeming value or blessings.  It's like having everything to live on and nothing to live for; in that case, even rich people are bored and find no purpose in life until they find true meaning in God.

Thus hell is the eternal monument to man's dignity where ultimate justice is meted out accordingly and in due measure, no more nor any less than required.  It's a salute to man's so-called free will and the choices he made and that all choices have ultimate consequences!  Time to pay the piper!  Time for the recompense of the wicked getting what they deserve.  If there was no hell we would lose an important anchor in preaching and society to the reality of sin's judgment.

We don't repent to get so-called fire insurance or a ticket out of hell, but we must realize there are consequences to our choices and decisions which God will judge.  Christians shall not come into judgment (cf. John 5:24; Rom. 8:1), but the wicked will be judged (cf. Rom. 2:6; Heb. 9:27) according to their works and the books opened to show that they fall short of the perfect requirements for heaven's entree in spite of their do-goodism.   Soli Deo Gloria!