Eternal Condition...Heaven or Hell?

On a mission trip with our church’s highschool group, one of the leaders on the trip made a compelling case for the urgency of the mission to make disciples. At one point in the talk he said “listen guys, hell is a real place” and then paused to let that truth sink in. While the statement was odd on its own, the fact of the matter is that many of us who follow christ, and certainly those who do not, can easily lose perspective on exactly what the ultimate consequence for unforgiven sin is, and how urgent this makes our mission to spread the news about that forgiveness.

Jesus discusses the contrast between eternal life with him and eternal life appart saying that those who reject the forgiveness of sin through the sacrifice of Christ “will go away to eternal punishment… (Mtt 25:41). At the end of the parable of the talents He says of those without His grace, He will ; “Cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth”. (Mtt 25:30) From these passages we can learn that hell is not simply some figurative term used by loud pastors in an effort to scare people into obedience, but that it is a literal, physical, real place which will be full of terrible conscious suffering and which will last forever.

Beyond this we can also gleen that this state, once determined, cannot be changed. In the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, the rich man finds himself in this state of eternal and conscious punishment, and desperately calls to lazarus who is “with abraham” to ease his suffering. Abraham’s response is both informative and chilling; “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. 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: 25-26) In short, not only is hell eternal, it is conscious, miserable and unchangeable by any. Not good.

But that is not the end of the story. This is why we are here, and it is why the doctrine of hell is important for the believer to understand. Our commission as believers is to “Go into the world and make disciples of all nations…” (Mtt 28:19) In our efforts to serve this mission obediently we are not only inviting people to experience the grace and blessing of heaven and eternity, we are also offering them the only reprieve from the certain and unchangeable reality of hell. Many times we will hear eternal life referred to as a gift as it is in Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death but the gift of eternal life in Christ Jesus our lord”. And while we go heavy on emphasising the gift of eternal life, we would do good to preach just as enthusiastically the wages of our sin that are being expunged.

Truly, no one comes to the Father but through the Son (John 14:6), and the only plan God set in motion to lead people to the son is through His believers, you and I. If the reality that is hell is to be avoided by anyone, and if the glory of heaven is to be its alternative, we must be diligent and devoted to our mission of making disciples. Paul makes this case to his followers In Romans 10:14-15, and it is the same one for us now “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone to preach? How can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news?!” Our Job is a joyful one, a glorious one, but an urgent one and the only one that we are commanded to undertake.