Hell is perhaps the most difficult doctrine to defend, the hardest to bear, and the first to be abandoned.  Many struggle to reconcile how a God of love could create a place of eternal torment. Yet despite its difficulty, polls tell us that the majority of Americans do believe there is a hell. More importantly, Jesus taught that it was real, and he took it seriously.  In fact, Jesus spends more time describing hell than heaven. Thirteen percent of the 1,850 verses which record the words of Jesus deal with the subject of eternal judgment and hell. C.S. Lewis said of hell, “There is no doctrine which I would more willingly remove from Christianity than this, if it lay in my power. But it has the full support of Scripture and, specially, of Our Lord’s own words.”

The basic questions this article will wrestle with are: What is hell? If God loves us, why would he send anyone to hell?  Why is it eternal when our sin is finite? 

What Is Hell?

To help us explore all of these questions, we will look at the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16:19-27. In this passage we have one of the clearest portrayals of hell in all of the Bible.¹ This story represents what hell is like:

¹⁹ “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. ²⁰ At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores ²¹ and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. ²² “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side. The rich man also died and was buried. ²³ In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. ²⁴ So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’ ²⁵ “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. ²⁶ And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’

Luke 16:19-26

It speaks of people suffering emotionally.

We see the rich man here and he is in regret. Look at the cry of the rich man:

“Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my father’s house, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.“

Luke 16:27-28

The rich man basically says, “I don’t like being here, and I don’t want my brothers to be here.”  This is an expression of regret. Regret is a quality of those in hell. Jesus, in Matthew describes hell as a place where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

This is how it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 13:49-50

What is weeping and gnashing of teeth? Theological Dictionary of the New Testament explains, “The reference is not to despairing rage, nor to a physical reaction, but to the remorse of those who are shut out of the kingdom even though called to it.”  There is the never-ending regret. Have you ever heard this sound—arrrgh!”? I’ve heard that sound coming from the kitchen of my home as I’ve cruised by Brenda (my wife) exclaiming: “Arrrgh! I should have taken those rolls out of the oven sooner. Now it’s a burnt sacrifice!” Or you missed the last second shot at the end of the game: “Arghhh!” When you blow it with cooking or basketball, there is a next time.  But in hell people say, “I blew it, I blew it, I blew it!” And there is no next time. Dante, in the Inferno, envisioned this sign chiseled above hell’s gate: “Abandon all hope, you who enter here.” 

It speaks of people suffering physically.

So he called to him, “Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.“

Luke 16:24

He asks Lazarus about the possibility of receiving the treasured relief that a single drop of water would offer. The rich man doesn’t ask for a barrel of water or a jar or a cup or a gulp. He just says a drop or two would be wonderful.

It speaks of people suffering spiritually. 

There is the absence of God.  The most ungodly and wicked of all people still benefit from living in an age where God’s grace shines on the just and the unjust. The worst criminals can still look out, even through prison bars, and see a blue sky and green grass. In this age, God is still restraining evil, and he is still working miracles in people’s lives who are far from him. He’s monitoring the flow of history. God still holds evil on a leash.  But in hell, God doesn’t intervene anymore.

Why Hell? 

What is described above sounds like a horrible place. So, why did God create it?

Justice demands it.

John Lennon, in his ballad, Imagine, sings:

Imagine there's no Heaven, 
It's easy if you try, 
No hell below us, 
Above us only sky, 
Imagine all the people, 
Living for today. 

Unfortunately, the greatest mass murderers believed that there was no justice awaiting them.  Without hell justice would never overtake the unrepentant tyrants responsible for murdering millions. Perpetrators of evil throughout the ages would get away with murder and every kind of destructive behavior. Were this our only life, for justice to be served, all evil would have to be judged here and all goodness rewarded here. That is beyond human capability. Without a judgement in the afterlife, complete justice is impossible.

What this means is that hell is not an evil place; it’s a place where evil gets punished. In this sense, hell is morally good because a good God must punish evil. Randy Alcorn writes, “Hell will not be a blot on the universe, but an eternal testimony to the ugliness of evil that will prompt wondrous appreciation of a good God’s magnificence.”  

Love demands it.

Why would a good God send people to hell? He doesn’t. God will let people go there ONLY if they so choose. Jesus says in Matthew 25:41 that hell was “prepared for the devil and his angels.”  It was not made for human beings. Hell is a place where God is NOT so that people who don’t want to spend eternity with God don’t have to.  To love someone requires that I give them the freedom to not love me back.  Love forced is not love at all. Sometimes people say, “If God is a loving father, I cannot imagine him condemning kids, no matter what they did to reject him.” Let’s say you’re an earthly parent, and your child decides he wants nothing to do with you and leaves home. What are your options? You can send him letters expressing your love; you can send money to help him get on his feet; you can visit him and plead with him to come home; you cannot bind him hand and foot, drag him home, and chain him to his bed for the rest of his life. That’s not love; that’s kidnapping and imprisonment.

Because of this, hell is not a place of torture because torture is suffering which is done against someone’s will.  Because our choices in this life orient us for eternity, God-rejecters might be as miserable in heaven as hell. C.S. Lewis states that the doors of hell are barred from the inside. By this he means that those in hell refuse to give up their trust in themselves to turn to God. The rich man in Luke 16 desperately desired to have his agony relieved; he even requested a drop of water from paradise. Wanting out of hell is not the same as wanting to be with God.

Why Is Hell Eternal?

A big question which is asked, “Wait a minute. How can people deserve everlasting destruction? Sin is finite or temporal, how can God punish for eternity\?” Here are three ways to reflect on this question.

The Person We Rebel Against

Suppose a middle school student punches another student in class. What happens? The student is given a detention. Suppose during the detention, this boy punches the teacher. What happens? The student gets suspended from school. Suppose on the way home, the same boy punches a policeman on the nose. What happens? He finds himself in jail. Suppose some years later, the very same boy is in a crowd waiting to see the President of the United States. As the President passes by, the boy lunges forward to punch the President. What happens? He is shot dead by the Secret Service. In every case the crime is precisely the same, but the severity of the crime is measured by the one against whom it is committed. What comes from sinning against God? Answer: everlasting punishment.

J. Warner Wallace clearly explains:

It’s important to remember the punishment for any crime is not determined by the criminal, but by the authority who is responsible for upholding the standard. Justice is not determined by the law breaker, but by the law giver. Justice and punishment are established based on the nature of the source of the law, not the nature of the source of the offense. Since God is the source of justice and the law, His nature determines the punishment.

For example, it is not that you lost your temper and said some unkind words in 2003. It’s not that you had lustful thoughts from looking at a website in 2004. It is not that you exaggerated your accomplishments on your resume in 2005. The crime earning one a place in hell is the rejection of the true and living eternal God. This rejection is not finite. People who reject God have rejected him completely.  It is a rejection of the source of all life, being, and existence.

The Nature of the Rebellion

The separation from God is everlasting because the rebellion of the heart is everlasting. As New Testament scholar, D.A. Carson has stated, hell is a place where “sinners go on sinning and receiving the recompense of their sin, refusing, always refusing, to bend the knee.” Hell would be ongoing punishment for ongoing sins. Evidence of this is seen in our passage where the rich man has a self-absorption that does not change.  He still wants Lazarus to be his servant.  He doesn’t say, “I was wrong for showing a lack of compassion.”  Rather he says, “Send Lazarus to serve me.”  He asks for comfort but not for change. Though people in rebellion do not want to be in hell, they do not want to be in a relationship to God to an even greater degree.

Conclusion

The Bible is a story of God pulling out all stops to reach humanity he dearly loves.  He is more passionate for everyone’s well-being than you and I are.  Even in the final hours on a death bed God has the power to speak into and reach out to and offer his love. God determined he would rather endure the torment of the cross on our behalf than live in heaven without us. Apart from Christ, we would all spend eternity in hell. But God so much wants us not to go to hell that he paid a horrible price so we wouldn’t have to.

¹It is referred to as “hades” which is a term meaning “realm of the dead.” Yet, this is the equivalent term for hell in the gospels.

What is the purpose of God for allowing suffering and evil in the world?  Yes, God suffers with us and for us. Yes, on the cross, Jesus bore all of the sin of humanity. But, does God bring about positive benefits through suffering? In approaching this question, it is important to keep in mind that Christianity addresses this problem of suffering more comprehensively than any other belief system. As Tim Keller explain: 

For God has purposed to defeat evil so exhaustively on the cross that all the ravages of evil will someday be undone and we, despite participating in it so deeply, will be saved. God is accomplishing this not in spite of suffering, agony, and loss but through it—it is through the suffering of God that the suffering of humankind will eventually be overcome and undone.

The message of the Christian faith is that God is accomplishing his purposes through suffering. What could this be? There is an expression (turned into a popular song), “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” In this article, we will examine several ways God allows suffering and pain to bring about a greater good.

What Doesn’t Kill You…

How does suffering, then, make us stronger?  The Bible gives some clear answers to this. This understanding is born out repeatedly in scripture. Here are some notable examples:

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  

Romans 5:3-4

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. 

James 1:2-4

For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 

2 Corinthians 4:17

Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your word.

Psalm 119:67

The biblical witness is clear, pain and suffering can have a sanctifying process, shaping us more into the character of Christ. Charles Dickens once wrote, “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching…I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”

No Pain, No Gain

Suffering Draws Us Near to God 

God permits pain and suffering because it challenges people to think about God, maybe for even the first time. For many people, the first prayers or thoughts of God came as the result of tragedy. C.S. Lewis described pain as God’s megaphone. “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences, but shouts in our pains.  It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” Pain is God’s way of getting the attention of people in a noncoercive way so that they might let go of the vanities or destructive habits of this life, consider spiritual things, and perhaps even repent of sin. Pain, in many cases, is a severe mercy which calls people away from destructive behaviors and toward God and his purposes.

Musician David Crowder in his song, How He Loves Us, speaks to this point:

All of a sudden I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory. And I realize just how beautiful you are and great your affections are for me.

The Psalm writer expresses it this way:

“You changed my mourning into dancing; you took off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.”

Psalm 30:11

Suffering Draws Us to Maturity 

Jonathan Haidt, a prominent psychologist at New York University, maintains that there is clear psychological evidence for the view that “people need adversity, setbacks…to reach the highest levels of strength, fulfillment, and personal development.”  He points out why this is seen in two ways. First, people who endure and come out on the other side of suffering become more resilient. Once they have learned to cope, they know they can do it again and live life with less anxiety. Second, it strengthens relationships, usually bonding those who suffer and struggle together more tightly into deeper friendships or family ties that serve to nurture and strengthen for years.

In the face of pain and adversity, the best human characteristics are developed. Here are some examples:

• There is no courage without danger.
• There is no sympathy without suffering.
• There is no forgiveness without sin.
• There is no compassion without loss or hurt.
• There is no patience without adversity.

Suffering Draws Us Near to Each Other 

God may permit suffering because it provides humans with the motivation and opportunity to care for one another and build better societies and communities. A world such as ours requires human beings to cooperate and peacefully co-exist in order to successfully respond to its challenges. God has provided us with a world that provokes us to improve our situation and advance in our care for one another. One example is seen in the improvements of medicine and sanitation. The list of medical and technological breakthroughs which prolong life and enhance the quality of human existence is stunningly remarkable:

• antibiotics
• vaccines (e.g. Polio)
• organ transplants
• anesthetics
• insulin
• sewage disposal
• water treatment
• surgical technologies

Because of advances in areas like medicine and sanitation the life expectancy of people, in countries where these are provided, has nearly doubled over the last 200 years.

Why Even Have This Kind of World?

Why a world with evil?

We sought to answer this question in the previous article. Here is another way to think about this. Imagine if God intervened at every moment anyone was going to make a wrong choice. Free will would no longer exist. If God waved his magic wand every time we made a bad choice, we would merely be puppets controlled by a puppeteer who overruled our thoughts and actions. Would we want to live in such a world, even if it meant we were insulated from suffering? Could we even speak of concepts such as ‘love’ without it being something freely given, and freely rejected? At best, we would be reduced to pets where our choices and capabilities had very limited influence or meaning.

What about a world of suffering?

The critic of Christianity will be quick to reply, “That may be. But there is also much suffering that exists in the world which isn’t a result of our own actions.” This includes natural disasters, disease and illness. In answer to this, scientist-theologian John Polkinghorne suggests that God has created a universe with particular natural laws that make life on earth possible so that humans with free will can exist in the first place. As an example, the same weather systems that create tornadoes that kill humans also create thunderstorms that provide our environment with the water needed for human existence. The same plate tectonics that kill humans (in earthquakes) are necessary for regulation of soils and surface temperatures needed for human existence. Because of the Fall of humanity (Genesis 3), the natural laws that operate are both a blessing and a curse. Christian thinker, Justin Brierly writes,

Tectonic plate activity renews the surface of the earth with minerals, yet wreaks havoc when humans build cities on the fault lines. Cell replication allows our bodies to grow and develop, yet can result in cancer when natural processes misfire.

Death has been introduced into the life cycle, yet it is our “last enemy” which will be defeated. (1 Corinthians 15:26)

Final Thoughts

Exercise compassion in suffering.

In approaching this topic a word of caution is definitely needed. In the very personal face of pain and suffering, we do not want to exercise a hurtful insensitivity like Job experienced with his friends. That means avoiding simple conclusions to what is often very complex realities to which only God fully understands. The wisest course of action when someone is in pain or suffering is to “weep with those who weep.” (Romans 12:15)  We do not want to play God in people’s lives but to provide his compassion and grace.

Exercise humility with the limits of our knowledge.

The apostle Paul, with the unmatched revelation and knowledge he had been given into the mysteries revealed in Christ, expressed these words, showing our need for humility and worship when it comes to the limits of our knowledge:

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
    How unsearchable his judgments,
    and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
    Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
    that God should repay them?”
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
    To him be the glory forever! Amen. (Romans 11:33-36) 

Though there is much we can say on the issue of why God has allowed evil and suffering, as Paul said in another place: “All that I know now is partial and incomplete.” (1 Corinthians 13:12)  

Perhaps the toughest question asked of Christians is, “Where is God in our suffering?” It is a question that escapes easy answers.  All around us is the evidence of appalling and painful suffering. There are natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, disease and famine which cause painful devastation and loss to innumerable multitudes. Other suffering occurs because of human actions. Wars, betrayal, abuse, and theft are examples among many other painful and destructive behaviors.  All of this suffering and evil presents a serious challenge to belief in the Christian God. The problem of evil is the bogeyman of Christianity. A monster hiding within the closet, whose presence we ignore for fear of discovering we are ill-equipped to understand and resolve. God is all-knowing, so he will be aware of suffering and evil. He is all-powerful, so he will be able to prevent suffering and evil. He is perfectly good, so he will want to stop all evil and suffering.  Clearly, he does not stop evil and suffering.  So, how can we believe in God?     

This article and the next article will seek to provide an answer to this challenge.  As we examine this issue, the case will be made that the existence of evil and suffering presents a powerful case for why the God of Christianity revealed in Jesus Christ can best account for why there is evil and suffering and give a secure hope for its final end.

No Evil Without God  

To call anything right or wrong or good or evil is to accept that some moral standard must exist for how we can judge something.  But, where does that standard come? Who determines it? In other words, when we say, “If God is good he ought to stop people from destructive behaviors,” where do we get our standard for “good?” Who ultimately determines how the world “ought” to be? Why should there be a standard, anyway? C.S. Lewis, when speaking of his change from atheism to belief in God, wondered where he even got the idea of an “unjust” suffering in the first place on the grounds of atheism. He explains:

My argument against God was that the universe seemed so cruel and unjust. But how had I got this idea of just and unjust? A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line. What was I comparing this universe with when I called it unjust? 

Lewis was saying that he needed an objective standard (outside of people) by which to judge something as good or evil, right or wrong. Otherwise, we are left with a world or brute reality without any real meaning; all suffering is simply the cause and effect of random and senseless forces of nature. Without this reference point, human beings have no more value to their behaviors than a swarm of ants or a herd of barn yard pigs. We are just more biologically advanced. That’s it. As atheist Richard Dawkins says that in a world without God there can be no basis to judge an action as evil. He writes the following:   

On the contrary, if the universe were just electrons and selfish genes…blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.

If there is no God then we are left with “pitiless indifference.”

Why Evil?

So why did God create a world with the possibility of having evil? Only a world with the possibility of evil would allow the possibility of love. God could have easily created a world in which nothing evil could ever happen. He could have preprogrammed people to always “act” in loving ways. But these preprogrammed agents would not genuinely be loving. Love can only be genuine if it’s freely chosen. Unless a person has the capacity to choose against love, they don’t really have the capacity to choose for it.

In fact, the concept of a “preprogrammed lover “ is completely meaningless contradiction of terms, like the concept of a “married bachelor” or a “towering midget.” God can’t create a “preprogrammed lover” because the very idea of an agent who is capable of love but not capable of choosing against love is meaningless. If God’s purpose in creation is raising up a people who are capable of receiving and reflecting his love, these people will have to have the potential to choose against love. The price of the possibility of love is freedom, and with freedom comes the possibility of evil. Madeleine Engle explains:

The problem of pain, of war and the horror of war, of poverty and disease is always confronting us. But a God who allows no pain, no grief, also allows no choice. There is no unfairness in a colony of ants, but also there is little freedom.

God Defeats Evil With Love  

So, if there is evil in the world, how do we believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful and all-good God? Though granting that God is real and is the Creator, some think of God as above all the plight and difficult struggles in the world, knowing everything, in charge of everything, yet calm and unaffected by the troubles in his world. If this were true, it would be a serious strike against God’s goodness and love. But that is not the picture we get in the Bible. Evil and suffering are deeply personal. Christianity states that God gives the most personal response. God becomes human in the person of Jesus Christ and bears ALL the evil and suffering of humanity through his own suffering and death.

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.

1 Peter 3:18

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

Pastor and theologian John Stott voices the importance of this biblical truth:

I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross…In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of his. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross that symbolizes divine suffering.

As John Austin Baker says, “The crucified Jesus is the only accurate picture of God the world has ever seen.” The understanding of Jesus on the cross discloses a God who suffers with humanity. God, in allowing evil, suffers the effects of evil, to overcome evil.

The Good News

The message of Christianity is not just that God suffers with us. God suffers for us.  We are trapped in the cycles of pain and suffering we experience and all too often cause them. God’s suffering is transformative.  He bears our suffering and turns it into transformative love. Simon Cuff tellingly clarifies:

As human beings we cling to power, God sheds it. As human beings we flee suffering, God transforms it. As human beings we cause suffering, God endures it. Christ is his last word on the matter. God suffers with us, but more important, for us – so in that last word we too might be fully alive, and free from the suffering this life brings.

What is unique about Christianity among all other religions is that God actually enters into all of our suffering. God knows suffering as a horrible and brutal experience. But he does this to overcome and transform it. As the great hymn of the early church, quoted by the Apostle Paul, expresses:

⁶ Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
⁷ rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
⁸ And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

⁹ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
    and gave him the name that is above every name,
¹⁰ that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

Philippians 2:5-11

What Does this Mean?

We cannot blame God for evil. The French atheist and novelist Albert Camus makes this astounding claim, “In that Christ has suffered, and had suffered voluntarily, suffering was no longer unjust….The divinity ostensibly abandoned its traditional privilege, and lived through to the end, despair included, the agony of death.” Camus appears to be saying that if God is no exception—if even he has suffered—then we cannot say he doesn’t understand. We cannot say that his sovereignty over suffering is being exercised in a cruel and unfeeling way. The cross makes it impossible to say that God has kept himself immune from our pain. We can fully trust him.

We can see God has provided the ultimate solution toward evil. At the cross evil is conquered as evil because God turns it back upon itself. He makes the supreme crime, the murder of the only righteous person to ever live, the very operation that abolishes the guilt and condemnation of our sin. This is utterly unprecedented. No more complete victory could be imagined.  At the cross, evil is “turned back on itself.” As John Calvin expressed, on the cross, destruction was destroyed, “torment tormented, damnation damned . . . death dead, mortality made immortal.” Jesus exhausted evil with the power of his love and then rose again. Because of this the end of the story will triumphantly declare these words:

 He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.

Revelation 21:4

In the next article we will look at how God brings a greater good through evil and suffering.