Last August, while our family was visiting Manhattan, we had the joy of seeing The Lion King on Broadway. And in this urban, sophisticated and seemingly progressive setting, the climactic moment of the play seemed particularly memorable and poignant to me. The crowd went wild at Scar’s destruction.
Among all the educated and psychologically informed audience members, I observed not one who expressed concern about the villain’s feelings. No one objected or protested as Scar’s self-proclaimed defender. None demanded our empathy for the misunderstood scapegoat.
Deep down, we all want the bad guys to get their due. We all have our cries for justice. Even Broadway audiences applaud the destruction of the manifest monster. Without controversy, we condemn Hitler to damnation. We know that great evil demands cosmic justice.
Yet we find it harder to imagine ourselves, or our beloved friends and family, as the villainsas those who rightly deserve what Jesus calls hell.
These damning doctrines
There I said it – “the crude monosyllable,” as CS Lewis calls it in his essay on “Learning in War.”
For a Christian, the real tragedy of Nero should not be that he played the violin while the city was on fire, but that he played on the edge of hell. You must forgive me for the crude monosyllable. I know that many wiser and better Christians than me these days do not like to mention heaven and hell, even from the pulpit. (48)
However, “those days” according to Lewis took place almost ninety years ago, at the start of the Second World War. Perhaps hell was allowed to make a brief return to polite conversation after such a war, but it is surely no more socially accepted today than it was in 1939. Lewis continues:
I also know that almost all references to this subject in the New Testament come from a single source. But then this source is Our Lord Himself. People will tell you it’s Saint-Paul, but that’s not true. These overwhelming doctrines are Sunday. They are not really far from the teaching of Christ or his Church. If we do not believe them, our presence in this church is great folly. If we do, sometimes we have to overcome our spiritual prudery and mention them. (48)
Note here two troubling assertions, well made in 1939, and still strikingly relevant. First, Jesus actually taught about hell more than anyone: “These overwhelming doctrines are Sunday. » For example, the Greek gehennathat we translate hell, appears twelve times in the New Testament, eleven of which are on the lips of Jesus. Hell proceeds from the mouth of our Lord himself – the only man who is equally divine, holy enough par excellence to speak on such a subject, and for none who truly claim his name to question it. question. It would truly be profound folly to think that you could have Jesus and not have with him his clear and pronounced teaching on hell.
Second, the paths diverge in Lewis’s double “ifs”: “If we do not believe them (the Sunday doctrines), our presence in this church is great folly. If we do, sometimes we have to overcome our spiritual prudery and mention them. In other words, Lewis asks us the question, as Elijah asked those who limped between Baal and the true God: will you be faithful to the clear teaching of the one you call Lordwhere is going You be a liar or a madman?
Hell is supposed to horrify
Even though we might struggle theologically with “the problem of evil” – and with it, “the problem of hell” – it is really the existential the problems of evil and hell that disturb us the most. Students can express (and even enjoy) theoretical questions in a safe academic setting, but these challenges pale in comparison to losing a loved one to cancer, murder, or a freak accident , and the question of whether your beloved could spend eternity apart from Jesus and under the sanctions of divine justice.
This existential the weight creates crises of faith for some. And the crisis can be exacerbated by assuming that you alone suffer from this weight, or that few others suffer, and that perhaps you really shouldn’t feel this anguish.
For those struggling with such existential unease, it can really be helpful to learn that you are not alone and that, to some extent, you should feel like that. Hell is supposed to make us uncomfortable. On this side of heaven, it is not a sign of spiritual health to be untroubled by the horrors of hell – that humans like us, created in the image of God for the fullness of life joy, will pass eternity under the just gaze of his almighty justice.
As theologian Wayne Grudem writes, not only “the doctrine of eternal and conscious punishment…. . . so foreign to the thought patterns of our culture,” but it also offends “on a deeper level…”. . . our instinctive, divine feeling of love and desire for redemption for every human being created in the image of God. Thus, he acknowledges: “This doctrine is emotionally one of the most difficult doctrines for Christians today to affirm. ” And this is entirely appropriate: “If our hearts are never moved to deep sadness when we contemplate this doctrine, then there is a serious deficiency in our spiritual and emotional sensitivities” (Systematic theology1152, note 16).
Go where the Bible goes
For all of us, and especially for those who feel the most discomfort, we would do well to turn to the book of Revelation – to go where the Bible goes. Two texts in the last part of the book can be particularly useful in addressing our (real) existential problems with hell.
The first is Revelation 15:1-4, where John sees “another sign in heaven,” which he calls “great and astonishing”: seven angels with seven plagues, and “with them the wrath of God is over” (Verse 1). There, John also sees “those who had overcome the beast (…). . . with harps of God in their hands” (verse 2). And how do these saints from heaven react to the poured out wrath of God? They sing. Without any reservation, they praise their Lord not in spite of his “righteous deeds” and his “righteous ways”, but precisely because of them. With His perfect divine justice in view, they sing: “Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! » (verse 3).
Then, in Revelation 19:1-4, after the fall of Babylon, the wicked being devastated in a single hour (18:10, 17, 19), John hears the response “from a great multitude in heaven” ( 19:1-4). 1). Once again, they do not lament; nor are they silent. On the contrary, with loud praise they cry out four times: “Hallelujah! (verses 1, 3, 4 and 6). God’s people declare in their worship that his “judgments are true and righteous” (verse 2). He “took vengeance for (the great harlot) the blood of her servants” (verse 2). And this, not just as a momentary but eternal act of judgment:
Alleluia! The smoke from her rises forever and ever. (verse 3)
Songs of Final Justice
Of this astonishing vision of the future, which we find so difficult to understand in the present, theologian John Frame comments: “When we are gathered around the throne, singing the praises of God in the eternal statewe will not object to the justice of God, but will praise it without reservation” (Salvation belongs to the Lord299).
The justice of God, in principle and in power, exercised against his enemies — who are also the enemies of his people — elicits the praise of heaven. This is what the saints demanded as early as Revelation 6:10: that God “judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth”. And this is the appeal addressed to the saints by those who watched from afar the destruction of Babylon:
Rejoice for her, O heaven,
and you, the saints, the apostles and the prophets,
for God has rendered judgment for you against her! (Revelation 18:20)
God justifies his people, not just himself, in the fires of hell. When final justice is done for the martyrs and for all the worshipers of heaven, the redeemed people of the Lamb will sing that their acts of righteousness are “great and amazing” (Revelation 15:1, 3). And for us today, with our discomforts, we observe that these prophetic insights are (at least to a significant extent) future and have not yet reached their fullness in our present lives.
The resolution will come
The songs of the Apocalypse today offer a balm to our existential problems, even if it is almost paradoxical. We are not yet completely relieved of this emotional dilemma, but we have, at the end of Scripture, a prophetic promise: God will one day bring the story to a climax in such a way as to bring us such relief. For now, we have no complete resolution, but we have the promise that, as surely as God is God, we will have such peace when His justice is fully done, and forever.
Right now, the thought of hell is supposed to make us uncomfortable. But one day soon, all the masks will fall. We will see all evil for what it is, and the wicked for what they are, as enemies of God and enemies of His people. And with the saints in heaven we will exult and vibrate with praise and indescribable joy, and even our most earthly beloved in hell will not ruin the glory of heaven.
Now we see dimly through a glass, but then we will see the Lamb face to face and glory in the exercise of His perfect righteousness and power, while marveling at His mercy toward us. Then God’s goodness and severity will extend far beyond our previous understanding. And the righteousness of hell, ultimately, will be a component of our eternal joy, not a detriment to it. We will see, without doubt, that the Judge of all the earth has done well (Genesis 18:25). He will wipe away every tear—and there will be “no more mourning, nor crying, nor pain” (Revelation 21:4).
