In seeking fulfillment through self-effort, we become destructive and we are separated from God. But God is the source of life, significance, and love. Our problem is that as destructive beings we do not have, in any natural way, an access to God to get what we need for life with Him. We need something beyond our natural ability. Jesus became the way to God, through the cross, by rescuing us from the rebellion that destroys. Now if we refuse His rescue, we remain in destruction. At the end of the phase of history in which we are now living, when Jesus comes again, those who have rejected the rescue will be left in a destructive place.
Hell is not what we commonly think it is. It is everything the Bible says it is, but we need to understand the imagery used and the warnings of Jesus. Our common vision of Hell comes largely from medieval literature as a place of torture where a red, horned devil with a barbed tail supervises the furnaces to continually burn the people who are not saved. This place is often thought of as a place that God has devised so that he can cause maximum pain that never ends to those who did not believe in Him. Many people find this to be out of character for a God of love and so avoid Christianity as just another worldly form of coercion.
Based on the fact that the Bible does not stop at saying that God loves us but goes on to say that He is Love itself, we know that God does not torture people to get back at them for not believing in Him. There is no retribution in God. But every person who is in rebellion, who lives for himself, will find in the end that he cannot be with God. Heaven is not a place of compromise that can accept the destructive nature of man. That would be to make heaven what earth has become and it, too, would contain evil and terrible suffering just as the earth does today. Also, God will not force man to love Him against His will. That would destroy the basis for love, which is to freely choose to give of oneself for another. God has done everything possible that can be done, this side of forcing a decision, to convince us and to woo us to Him. Though we were incapable of approaching the Father, He made a way through Jesus that we could be forgiven and transformed to the image of the man Jesus, that we would be acceptable to the Father.
In refusing the rescue of Jesus we will remain, after this life, outside of the reach of God’s benefit. Our history here on earth has great examples of terrible evil. Evil, it seems, pervades places where Jesus is no longer honored and places where Jesus has never been honored. The Nazi holocaust is just one example of the evil of man against man. There are many more. This provides evidence of the source of evil. The source is not in God but in the rebellion against God. Hell is a place of evil, not a place of God. Destruction is an evil thing, and it will be in abundance in Hell. But the world now has many who walk with God and because of their acceptance of God’s power of love, the earth is not yet as evil as it could be. Hell is the final place of evil without any restraint or any way to find relief. We have an opportunity to bring God’s power of love into the world. There is no necessity of man falling into a place remote from God. We must make a priority of delivering the gospel of God’s rescuing power to every person that we know.
Jesus often warned of Hell with the idea that it should be avoided. There is no doubt that Hell is a real place and that it will be extremely uncomfortable for those who do not know God. When Jesus returns to earth in all of His glory, heaven and earth will be one, with no evil, as it all will be the place of God. People who have remained in rebellion against God will be left in a place where God will not be.
God gave His human life in Jesus so that we might be rescued. Those who continue to rebel against God will become more and more destructive and will end in utter destruction. The urgent plea is to return to our creator, to receive in this life the wonderful benefits of God’s power in love and to continue on in that love forever.
Let us at Rescued For Love know how we can help you continue a conversation towards finding the way to God through a relationship with Jesus.