ACMTC STAFF
FROM THE RECORDS of our Lord’s ministry among men we discover that some of the most solemn utterances about the eternal woe of the lost fell from the lips of Him who died that men might not perish. No matter how men may try to do away with Hell, it is still in existence and was a grim reality to Jesus who constantly warned His hearers of its terrors. While some of His descriptions of the place of final punishment may be figurative, they yet indicate a dreadful reality. The words He used all imply utter and hopeless ruin and reveal how candid He was when speaking of the eternal destiny of those rejecting Him and His witness. We cannot explain away the revelation He gave men of eternal punishment. It was the Savior who came as the personification of divine love who spoke of:
“The broad way that leadeth to destruction” (Matt. 7:13); “lose his own soul” (Matt. 16:26; see Matt. 19:23); “eternal punishment” (Matt. 25:46, RV); “outer darkness” (Matt. 8:12; 22:13; 25:30); “unquenchable fire” (Mark 9:43, 44); “wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Matt. 13:42, 50); “thy whole body cast into hell” (Matt. 5:29-30); “everlasting fire” (Matt. 25:41, 46); “where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:46-48); “eternal sin” (Mark 3:29, RV).
Yet, speaking so faithfully of the reality, the fearfulness, the eternity of God’s just retribution, Jesus always displayed His matchless love and his unlimited grace, for it was the contemplation of the sinner’s doom that caused His tears. Can you not hear the sob of unwanted love in His plea, “How often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, AND YE WOULD NOT” (Luke 13:34, 35; see 19:41).
It is not generally realized that Jesus spoke more frequently of the place of woe than of the abode of eternal peace. His most graphic and detailed representation of the place, originally prepared for the Devil and his angels, is the illustration he used for the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man is tormented in Hell’s flame, not because he was rich, but because his soul’s deepest interests were neglected. He prays in agony for a drop of water to cool his tongue, but his suffering and despair are increased tenfold by the sight of the felicity of the beggar whom he had despised and neglected, now at a heavenly banquet, and also by the fact that a great gulf is fixed between paradise and perdition. There was no purgatory in which the rich man could cleanse himself of his sins and errors and then recline on Abraham’s bosom. Hell, as we understand it from the teaching of Jesus, means eternal separation from God.
What must be borne in mind is that God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance (2 Pet. 3:9) and, therefore, never sends sinners to Hell. The eternal punishment of the wicked is not arbitrarily imposed by God but is the inevitable outcome of sin itself — the confirmation of sinners in their own self-chosen course, being left by God to reap the full, dire consequences of sin. Having persistently separated themselves from God, sinners, dying in their sin, banish themselves from His presence and abandon themselves to reap the full harvest of their own evil character and of their rejection of Calvary’s provision for their sin. “God willeth that all men should be saved” (1 Tim. 2:4, RV), but to the wicked, Jesus was obliged to say, “Ye WILL NOT COMEto Me that ye might have life” (John 5:40; see John 3:19). Although He was the Son of God, with power, Jesus never compelled submission. “If any man will.” Because He died that men might be forgiven all their sin, Jesus gives to men not a chance, but every chance to accept His gift of eternal life.
Dr. James Orr’s article on Christ in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia reminds us that it adds to the terribleness of the sayings of Jesus about Hell when we remember that “there is nothing to put against them; no hint or indication of the termination of the doom. Why did Jesus not safeguard His Words from misapprehension, if behind them there lay an assurance of restoration and mercy after the grave? No, when Jesus used the term eternal whether of eternal life or eternal damnation, He meant a finality of state. When some men fail to reconcile the Saviour’s love with His doctrine of Hell, they drop one of them—Hell. But he who taught—‘God so loved the World,’ also declared that if men fail to believe in His bountiful provision for their sin then they must perish, which means, not annihilation, but eternal banishment from His presence, John 3:16.”
If ours is the obligation of preaching the Woes of Scripture as well as its Blesseds, when it comes to warning sinners to flee from the wrath to come, may it be with tears in our voice. This was how Paul preached (Phil. 3:18). May compassion of heart and tone be ours as we warn the sinner of the peril of being forever lost!
Take time to turn to each Scripture reference and mark the verse or a portion in your Bible.
1. How did Jesus describe the reality of Hell?
2. Who is responsible for banishment from the presence of God?