Hell
I concluded the previous chapter emphasising that either we are constantly making choices that bring us closer to God, and that this process continues after the biological death of our bodies, or we are making choices that take us further and further away from God. Neither Heaven nor Hell are places, in the way that Yorkshire is a place. But the process of receiving God's gift of 'zoe' continues until we are indeed eternally in the promised 'new earth and new heaven'.
This physical universe seems so real to us, but physicists know that this is an illusion. What we call solid, or tangible, is a collection of invisible forces, called protons and neutrons and suchlike, whirling round each other in complex orbits. Christians believe that the greater reality is what lies beyond the reach of our physical senses, and is eternal and imperishable. There is an eternal part of every one of us, which we call the soul. The eternal condition of our souls, and our transformed bodies, is what this is all about.
All our choices have eternal consequences, and this is what Christians understand about Judgment: 'this is the judgment, that light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil' (John 3:19 RSV). The word 'judgment' here is translated 'verdict' in the NIV (the Greek is 'crisis'), and as you can see, the verdict is the one we pass on Light, not the one passed on us.
Just as I emphasised in the previous chapter that Heaven is not a reward, a prize, awarded to some and withheld from others, so it is important to understand that Hell is not a punishment, which some are deemed to deserve, while others are 'let off'. Hell will involve pain and anguish, certainly, but only those who choose it will receive it. We can choose it by rejecting the gift of 'zoe' offered to us by the Saviour of all mankind Himself.
Hell is the English translation of the Greek 'Hades', the place of the departed in Greek mythology. In this sense the Apostles' Creed speaks of Jesus as 'crucified, dead and buried.
He descended into Hell.' When Jesus spoke of the Church He was building, and that the 'gates of Hell would not prevail against it' the NIV rightly translates the word as Hades (Matt. 16:19). There is another word translated as Hell, and this is Gehenna, which was the rubbish tip outside Jerusalem where the rubbish was burnt. It is a wonderfully dramatic metaphor to say that those who reject God will be consigned to an eternal rubbish tip, and there is a 'consigning' or 'casting' or 'disposal', as is clear from these words of Jesus: 'do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more ... fear him who, after the killing of the body, has the power (authority) to throw you into hell' (Luke 12:4-5).
The best description of the state of those whose choice is to move further and further away from God is that given by Paul writing to the Thessalonians: 'they shall suffer the punishment (literally 'judgment' or 'sentence') of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord ...' (2 Thess. 1:9 RSV). To every one who persists in a determination to live their life away from God, the awful truth is that they will eventually succeed. God will finally grant their wish. This is described in the chilling phrase as 'the second death' (Rev 20:14).
We can experience a foretaste of both heaven and hell in this life, which is why we read so much pictorial language: that heaven is filled with light and music and dancing and rejoicing; that hell is filled with darkness and fire and pain and suffering. But let us not be simpletons. Most of our comprehension of things eternal is the childish thinking Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13 we need to leave behind.
'Now we see blurred reflections ... then (when we have passed through the gateway we call death) we will know perfectly, even as we are known.'
We will all eventually 'know' – and that knowledge will be either the making or the unmaking of us, the perfecting or the destruction of us, eternal joy or eternal sorrow, heaven or hell.
In these past two chapter I have focused, in thinking about heaven and hell, on choices. Now I want to look at both of these in a much wider context.