BS95: What’s all this about Hell? : Ezekiel 18:32
Ezekiel 18:32
I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live!
Sometimes people ask me why my so-called loving God would send someone to hell. This is such a hard question to deal with and usually I just don’t have a good enough answer. I wanted to think about this some more and explore it with you! I don’t have all the answers, but here are my thoughts! Feel free to share yours with me too 
People say to me that they are a “good person” and why would God send a good person to hell? I think the first thing we need to tackle is people’s perception of what “good” means. In Alpha Nikki Gumble uses the image of a scale of good and bad which goes from floor to ceiling, floor being the ultimate bad, ceiling being the ultimate good, then he asks people to rate say Hitler, Mother Teresa and themselves. More often than not they put Hitler right near the bottom of the scale, mother Teresa near to the ceiling and themselves somewhere in the middle. I think that scale highlights that even though we may think we are good, we are not perfect because otherwise we would all put ourselves at the ceiling. Even mother Teresa was not perfect and on that scale the only person who would reach the ceiling (and beyond) is Jesus. We are not to compare ourselves to the world and the “average person,” we are to compare ourselves with the perfect life of Jesus. Then we will see that our “good” just isn’t good enough. God is perfect, being perfect and good and just, he cannot look on sin or accept it. That’s why he sent Jesus, so that when he looks on us, we are perfect in his sight because Jesus took our sins on the cross, exchanging his perfectness for our sin. Without Jesus in our lives we cannot enter heaven on our own merits.
The other thing I would like to talk about is this paradox – a loving God who lets people go to Hell… This is hard, but as I mentioned, God is just, he is fair, he can’t bend the rules. If he was a judge in a court of law and someone was found guilty of a crime, he couldn’t just go, well I like this person so I’m going to let him off… No! He would have to pass the right sentence, even if the person stood in front of him was his son, or he wouldn’t be a good, fair judge. (We would soon sack him for being biased and unjust wouldn’t we?) God never bends the rules for any of us, but loves each one of us the same, and so sent Jesus to take our penalty for us1, to pay our spiritual fine, to do our stint in jail.
This verse in Ezekiel (and many other verses) speak to me of God’s anguish when people still choose death rather than to turn to him and live. He says time and time again that he takes no pleasure in seeing the death of people2, whether they are “good” or even “wicked” he wants us all to turn from our wrong ways and to live3. It’s so simple – repent & live – This means to be sorry for what we have done wrong and to choose to turn around and not continue to walk in rebellion against God. He wants us to be free and living his way because that’s the best way we can live! He doesn’t want any of us to go to hell, and gives us all more opportunities than we deserve in order to prevent us from death. Yet he will not force us, we have free will to choose. And when we do choose, what a joy this brings Him to see someone saved from death and brought into life.4
So the real question is.. Why would anyone choose to go to hell, when we have been offered the gift of eternal life?
1) For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16
2) Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? Ezekiel 18:23
3) The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 2 Peter 3:9
4) In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Luke 15:10
August 6th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I have always wondered about hell. My biblical knowledge isn’t exactly extensive but I don’t recall it ever being mentioned in the old testament anywhere. Nor heaven for that matter although this could be implied with the various people who got taken up to be with God.
With the coming of Jesus a new covenant was established and the “modern” ideas of heaven and hell were formed. Does this mean they didn’t exist before then? I don’t think so. So either there has always been a hell and God happily sent all his followers there without warning or hell is not exactly what we think it is.
I’m sure there are some passages in Revelation that explain what hell is but I’ve always considered the fact that maybe hell is just the absence of God. Maybe hell is what I used to think of as death when I was an athiest: nothing. An eternity of darkness and nothingness without God.
This makes the whole ressurection thing make more sense in my head as Jesus coming back to life to live at God’s side doesn’t mean anything if you have to die to be in heaven. If death is death and ressurection means heaven that makes more sense to me. In order to get to a fiery place called hell would mean having to be ressurrected as well surely?
Now I’m sure I am very wrong in all of this and that there are lots of biblical verses to tell me as much. Can anybody give me a few…
August 6th, 2008 at 2:16 pm
[...] friend Lindsay has just posted a very interesting bible study on hell based on Ezekiel 18:32. She was talking about who goes to [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 7:44 am
Hi Adam
Thanks for your comments, you are right about the specific word “hell” not being mentioned in the OT. This is because Hell was an actual physical place in Jesus’ time, I think he mentioned it as a way to visually discribe how awful it would be for the people who reject God.
“Gehenna” is the greek word for Hell and I’ve read that it refers to a valley near Jerusalem which was viewed as cursed because of all the violent deaths there.
In Jesus’ time it had become the town’s dump – a place of waste and distruction with fires burning and wild animals fighting for scraps to eat from the rotten piles. When Jesus talked about Hell, everyone in those times would immediately have a vivid image of this horrid, filthy, death-ridden place.
In the OT people talked about “the grave” “the depths of the grave” “the realm of death”and things like “fire.” Which I think refers to what we now call hell. Read Isaiah 14:9 if you want to shudder!!
Mmmm not enjoyable reading!! Perhaps we should now move on and talk about heaven?!
August 15th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
I think you hit the nail on the head when you say “Without Jesus in our lives we cannot enter heaven on our own merits”. To me it’s not about good people or bad people, but believers and non-believers. No one can doubt what “good” things for others many non-Christians we know do for others and how they sometimes put Christians to shame with their good deeds. However, without Jesus in their lives then, according to the bible, they’re not on the path to heaven. Sometimes I don’t think that’s fair, but then again is it fair to not acknowledge God’s existence, presence and authority, but still expect to enter His kingdom?
As for God not bending the rules, he does change his mind from time to time. If you look at Exodus and when the Israelites made a golden calf. God was so angry that he told the Israelites that they could go to the promised land, but that he wouldn’t go with them. The Israelites chose to stay with God as life in the promised land without him would be meaningless. God then decided to go with the Israelites. Also, could sending Jesus could be seen as a change in plan (if God’s initial hopes for the world had come true, if people had always listened to God, Adam and Eve hadn’t eaten the apple, if the Israelites hadn’t become so governed by hundreds of set laws, etc, would there have been a need for Jesus? Then again, maybe God knew that people wouldn’t stay on the straight path so sending His son was always part of the plan).
August 18th, 2008 at 11:30 am
Thanks for your comments!! God does change his mind, but I’m not sure that he”bends the rules” tho, because if we break/bend rules then we sin (and God doesn’t sin.) However, God is God and he is the only one who can offer us forgiveness of our sins when we repent. Like with poor ol’ Jonah telling everyone that they were doomed, knowing that they would repent and then God would forgive them and not destroy them. God wasn’t sinning/bending the rules by forgiving them, he was simply responding to their repentance with forgiveness and love (coz he’s so great and compassionate and not like us!!)