What Happens When We Die?

What happens when we die?

By Jay Wegter

Hebrews 9:27-28 sets forth the greatest contrast conceivable, either a mortal man is awaiting judgment, or awaiting eternal life with Christ:

27 And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, 28 so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second

time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.

Revelation 20:11-15 describes the tragic end awaiting the impenitent:

11 Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and

heaven fled away, and no place was found for them.

12 And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were

opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.

13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead

which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds. 14 Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake

of fire.

15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the

lake of fire.

The sheer gravity of being created in the image of God is seldom discussed in polite social circles today. For the moral obligation which comes with our creational identity is a most sobering subject. It is joined to our eternal destiny. We were created to reflect God’s righteous character—so that in word and deed and motive our lives would reflect the moral rectitude of God. And that is only possible if a person knows and loves God. This casts a most intense light upon the seriousness of sin. For men imagine that their misdeeds are of little consequence as long as no one was hurt during their committal. But Scripture declares something far different about human sin. All sin is against God Himself because as His image-bearers, our lives are designed to be a constant commentary of what God is like. We are created to be ‘reflectors’ of the virtues of our God.

Thus, in this sermon we will frequently ask questions like these, “Is your life telling a lie about God?” “Have you ever really considered what you owe God?” “What does God require you to do about it if your life is telling a lie about God?” “What are the results of the consequences of not obeying God since your life is telling a lie about God?” This all goes back to the question, “What does a man owe God by reason of being made in His image and likeness?” To even hear such a concept that we owe God something tends to enrage the natural man, for it is an outrage to him to hear that he is not autonomous. We Westerners take pride in our independence, our individuality, that there is no authority we recognize that tells us what we should do or what we should be. This leads us to a very important question, what is our creational identity? We can’t have it both ways. We can’t be the image of God and also merely the image of an animal.

As the image of God it should be clear that our Creator is the source of our dignity and morality. But with that creational identity as the image and likeness of God comes accountability to our Maker—every person will give an account of himself unto God. If you have even an inkling of moral wisdom you will care very deeply about the standard of judgment by which you’ll be examined on that last day. Our passage indicates that two great factors appear in the examination of every man: 1) there will be a judgment by works, 2) there will be a judgment which depends on whether a man’s name is in the book of life. So what is the ultimate basis for judgement? The answer is that basis of judgement is the character of God Himself, that is what will examine you. God’s character sees everything in our lives. By His omniscience He knows the motives and intents of the heart, nothing is hidden, all is laid bare before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do (Heb 4:12-13).

There is so little fear of God today because there is so little knowledge of God. The evil one deceives the whole world by normalizing sin (2 Corinthians 4:4). The powers of darkness work overtime to conceal the fact that sin is the greatest imaginable disaster; it is a cruel, murderous intruder. But God requires truth in the inner most being, God requires absolute righteousness. So again, the sinner takes umbrage, feeling insulted that he should be required to supply a level of righteousness he is unable to generate. The sinner is insulted that he must look outside of himself for the righteousness which is acceptable to God. But, with the sinner’s self-righteousness there comes a lofty arrogance that will not stoop to be represented entirely by the Son of God. I picture Noah’s neighbors looking up and scanning the dimensions of that massive Ark but seeing the smallness of the door. They would not stoop low enough or bow their heads to enter the door of the Ark but like every natural man held fast to their spiritual pride. They were willingly ignorant in their delusion that they could protect themselves from a mythical threatened flood. “Would God destroy everything with breath because of us? How utterly absurd, Noah is not a sane man—his dry dock ship is proof of his troubled mental state.”

So also the natural man imagines he can protect himself from God by his own ideas about life, and by his moral and religious efforts. By contrast, oh how self-renouncing is saving faith, for it looks completely away from self to God’s appointed representative. Only the soul which is thoroughly convicted, humbled, and bankrupted of all moral merit welcomes Christ with his whole being. He flees to the Savior for refuge knowing that his own sins expose him to the hot displeasure of God’s fury and wrath (Ps 90). It says in Hebrews 4:1 “let us fear lest any of us come short.” Oh my friends what is the Lake of Fire that burns forever? In what way does that burning cauldron manifest God’s holy character? Have we forgotten the lessons of moral cause and effect which fill Israel’s history (1 Corinthians 10; read Lamentations)?

The question Jonathan Edwards posed comes to mind “Should God make the cosmos and then abandon its created purpose?” Would God allow the created purpose of the universe to miscarry? Does human and angelic sin in any way thwart God’s purpose to make all things for His glory? God made all things in order to showcase His moral majesty and bring Him endless glory. What shall become of that purpose in a fallen and cursed world? Romans 9 tells us the answer, every person will prove to be an eternal object lesson either a vessel of mercy or a vessel of wrath. That means a vessel whose relationship to God is mercy which exists to declare to God’s mercy and is the container of God’s mercy. Oh the other should terrify us for to be a vessel of wrath is to have one’s relationship with God defined as being an object of wrath; it is to be a container of wrath, it is to be an object lesson of divine justice issuing forth and endless wrath so that the expression of divine wrath finds its locus in that individual. The perfect discrimination between these vessels is not owed to the level of innate righteousness in either vessel but to God’s sovereign, free, and indistinguishing grace. Oh how the reasoning of the natural man is frustrated by perfect, divine discrimination. Man cannot stand even for a moment to not be the master of his own fate.

Now let us turn our attention to Revelation 20:11-15. Oh these words disturb us, agitate us, and pierce the conscience of the unredeemed man. “No place was found for them.” (See Job 21.) Their assumed entitlement to walk God’s green earth, to breathe its air, to own a plot of land, to consume its produce, to leave their wealth to their children is all put to the lie. “No place was found for them.” Those who never repent of telling a lie about God will be evicted from their bodies and from this planet. God will not allow a cumberer of the earth to find refuge anywhere in the creation. Oh these are sobering words that there is a Lake of Fire and the impenitent will be unceremoniously thrown into that burning lake.

Our little minds cannot comprehend that phrase “tormented forever and ever.” Because there is so little fear of God there is so little valuing of Christ. My friends, there is no safety in Moses, don’t put your hope there. The Law explains what God requires and the Law closes every mouth, removes every excuse, crushes every alibi, and pronounces the whole world guilty before God. But the Law cannot protect your from condemnation over your sins. Hebrews 10 tells us that our God is a consuming fire. But what does that fire of God consume? The answer ought to make us fear and revere God, for the answer is that God will consume as a furnace all that is not like Him in holiness.

Unlike the false promise of purgatory, God’s burning furnace will never complete its work upon the rational creatures who die in sin and unbelief. God will avenge Himself upon His enemies forever (see white hot lava from His throne in Daniel). But you will say to me that is too much, that is too severe, that is too unlike human justice and fairness. It sounds far too vindictive, cruel, harsh, and much too punitive to levy such punishment against weak human beings that they should endure this crushing condemnation forever. Don’t imagine for a moment that you have the power to hold God hostage by impugning His character. God has shown us what our sin deserves and His greatest demonstration was not the Genesis Flood, nor the fiery destruction of Sodom.

His greatest demonstration of what sin deserves is what He inflicted upon His own Son. For in the cross we see and even more devastating commentary of what God thinks of sin than eternal hell. For in Christ’s agony and wrath-bearing the Father’s gaze is turned away and the Son endured His agony while cutoff from every living thing. It is the abandonment under torment that hurts more deeply than the nails themselves. No my friends you will not escape judgment by attempting to blackmail God’s reputation. Your blood will be upon your own head. For God has publicly exhibited His Son as the perfect atonement, as the substitute crucified for sinners. Christ died in time, space, mass history in Jerusalem, right off of the king’s highway at the meeting place of three continents. His bloody death was witnessed by Jew and Gentile and was archived by the eye-witness account of historians. God Almighty has given testimony concerning His Son. The Father has born witness as what took place in Christ’s substitutionary death. Thus, every unbeliever who has heard the gospel yet remains impenitent ‘makes God a liar’ (1 Jn 5). There is safety nowhere else but in the good news of the gospel. Thus, to scorn God’s offer of mercy, yea His command to come and be forgiven, is to have no compassion on your own eternal soul. It is to treat it as dirt. It is to thrust a spear into one’s own heart.

Again, our Revelation text is designed to bring us to the highest level of sobriety in regards to our final destiny. On the last day the secrets of men’s hearts will be revealed (Romans 2:16). On that day the ability to override the conscience will be gone forever. On that day the conscience will speak in full agreement with the Law of God and in full agreement with God’s record of one’s life. And, that is why the conscience will also agree with God’s verdict. Then, and only then, will the natural man begin to understand that his conscience was God’s moral mark upon him—the very image and likeness of a holy God. At that moment when the final verdict is pronounced, God will introduce a spark of wrath and then that man’s conscience will rise up to its full stature as the very image of a holy God. Then that moral faculty of man, whose conviction of sin was muffled over a lifetime, will speak at full volume and begin to take its eternal revenge against its ungrateful host.

Oh, if men only knew that the worm that never dies already lives inside of them. If men only knew that the pains of hell will be enforced every moment by a conscience that says, “I deserve this forever.” Then will come the saying, “How righteous are thy judgements and how just are thy ways.” Sinners entertain a sentiment which is the polar opposite of that statement. They have created a false hiding place in believing that God is not as good as His Word. Therefore, they stumble over the stumbling stone of the cross. For, the cross is a monument to the world that man deserves to die and be cut off from God forever. But to regard the cross in this manner, the natural man would have to pronounce God’s judgment on himself. He would have to take God’s side against his own sin. He would have to damn himself—agreeing with God’s verdict. This the natural man will not do apart from the work of the Spirit of God. For the natural man is staunch in his commitment to the notion that God would be unjust to damn him. Thus, the sinner in his un-awakened state considers the acceptance of God’s verdict about him to be conflict of interest. Therefore he sues for injustice on God’s part rather than face the gravity of his own wickedness.

How universal it is that modern sinners never give a thought as to what they owe God. They can’t be distracted for a moment to contemplate the countless way their lives are telling a lie about God. And yet, to embody the image of God as our creational identity means that our calling is to know the God whom we are created to reflect. This is why there is an eternal hell, for God has no other place for the eternal souls of those made in His moral image who refuse to reflect His moral majesty. Thus, how can we as fallen creatures possibly measure the magnitude of the disaster of human sin? We cannot take sin’s measure, nor fathom the scope of its consequences. But we can gain but a glimpse of its seriousness and horror when we consider what the image of God has become in eternal hell. (See my summary of the image of God.) Oh the suicidal trickery by which men attempt to assuage their consciences.

Dear brethren that conscience-numbing form of bribery will no longer work for even a millisecond in hell. By reason of us being made in God’s moral image there is a strict correspondence between your conscience and the Law of God—between crime and punishment. Despite your efforts to bribe your conscience and turn the volume down so as to mute its accusations, you know that you were made in God’s moral image. The conscience tells you so each day. Your conscience reminds you that you will face God as Judge. For, your conscience issues countless subpoenas telling you the very things for which you will have to answer unto God. Your conscience lets you know that this moral requirement upon you is not a human invention. It is anchored in God’s holy character.

And yet, even in knowing all these things you love a lie about God and His Word, and you love that lie because you will not serve your Maker and receive His gift of forgiveness. You love that lie because you cherish the impossible dream of personal autonomy from God. You love the lie because you are wed to your iron lusts. So what is the answer? The answer is come home forever. Drop your weapons. Welcome clear views of your sin and guilt— for they fit you for the Savior who is ‘Friend of sinners’. Return to the Father’s house. He will receive you. For there is no lasting love, life, light, purpose, and belonging outside of God in Christ. Cry for grace, admit that God is right and you are terribly wrong. Acknowledge your sin and self-will, be done with your proud, soiled rags of self-righteousness and Christ will gladly receive you.

When Christ walked the earth, the perfect image of God was back on earth for the first time since Adam fell. Ponder for a moment why only the death of Christ (the perfect image of God), suffering in our place could reverse the ruin of sin. This is why Christ is called ‘the last Adam’. For, as our covenant Head, He acts in the room and in the stead of His people. Only the slaying of Christ, the God-man, the perfect image of God could undo the ruin caused by the first Adam. (See Thomas Brooks, Man in his fourfold state.) Heaven is a gift but it’s given only to those who do not insist upon keeping their sin. Who want Christ more that their sin.

No study on this provocative topic should begin without a definition of terms. This means we take nothing for granted. The doctrine of hell is a biblical truth, so it behooves us to draw our definitions from Scripture in order to represent this doctrine fairly and thereby steer clear of logical fallacies and stereotypes (i.e. demons with pitchforks, reprobates partying with other residents of hell, etc.). Some of the most important questions to ask up front are: Who is God? What is man? What is man’s moral condition? What is God’s goodness? What is hell? Why does it exist? How does Scripture say that hell can be avoided?

What I am going to share with you tonight is a scriptural case for the doctrine of hell. I tremble a bit to be the spokesperson my life was once a blot on the character of God. The only reason I can say anything on this subject tonight is because I have been spared from a Christ-less eternity by God’s mercy to me in His Son. I stand here as a former rebel and despiser of God’s holiness. My credentials are summed up in this phrase: a transgressor who has become a trophy of grace because he has tasted the goodness of the Lord.

Scripture claims that we can’t think seriously about ourselves without thinking about the One who made us, and who continues to care for us. We could not have made ourselves— and given life to ourselves. We are first and foremost dependent creatures (Ps 100). In order to know ourselves and have a right knowledge of ourselves, we must know what we are like in God’s sight. The perfection of our wise and holy Creator is the standard against which we must be measured.ⁱ

According to God’s Word this is not a “plan-less” universe. It has a design; a clear purpose. Mankind as the crown of God’s creation was created to be an icon of God—our creational identity governs our calling: we were made to rule with Him over the earth and raise up communities built on moral truth and the knowledge and love of God.

To know God is not just to know that there is a God. It is to recognize Him as the self-existent One who upholds our existence every moment. Therefore, to know God is to know the relation we bear to Him as His creatures. Our utter dependency upon God is not merely for physical (life, breath, health); but equally for spiritual, moral, and intellectual life. Those who know God also know that they have no wisdom, righteousness, power, or truth apart from Him. The knowledge of God is not something a person learns at school; for a person finds this knowledge within himself. Thoughts of God are already deeply planted in our minds by our Creator (Rom 1:18-22).ⁱⁱ

Though God is given evidence of Himself in our innate knowledge of Him and in the wonder of the created universe; mankind needs the Scriptures to reach a true knowledge of God.ⁱⁱⁱ Those who truly know God have their lives radically affected by the knowledge of Him (Titus 2:11-14). The light of God’s truth is transforming (not abstract or theoretical). The greatest enemy of thinking upon God is living for the satisfaction of our lusts (Phil 3:19).

The Word indicates that those who are truly spiritual love to think about God’s goodness, holiness, power, wisdom, and grace. Such thoughts renew and refresh them. They take delight in God—in His perfections, in His love and His all-wise governance. By contrast, those who do not know God cannot delight in what they fear. Their fear arises for a reason: they do not love holiness nor do they have holiness in them. By contrast, those who know God have both love for God and reverential fear and awe of God—this is the very life of true religion.ⁱᵛ

The infinite perfections of God are something we find difficulty in contemplating. We prefer to dwell upon His love, kindness, and generosity, and bypass the aspects of His character that instill awe, fear and wonder. But any faithful discussion of the doctrine of hell must have as its foundation, the justice and holiness of God. God’s holiness consists of His perfect love of righteousness, and abhorrence of evil (Hab 1:13). Unlike us, He is unchangeably holy. Thomas Watson, the most readable of the Puritans, says of holiness, “There is not a greater sign of a person devoted to hell, than to hate one (a person) for the thing wherein he is most like God.” God is glorious in holiness—therefore to despise holiness is to despise God Himself. The mercy of God in Christ is intended to wash away our unholiness and to draw us to a life of holiness (there is no other way to be fitted for heaven).

Holiness through Christ is the great design of the cross of the Son of God (Titus 2:14). Because we are made in the image of God, holiness gives boldness with God and peace of conscience. And, because we are made in the image of a holy God, sin raises a storm in the conscience—where there is sin, there is tumult.ᵛ

“God’s justice is the rectitude of His nature, whereby He is carried to the doing of that which is righteous and equal (Prov 24:12)” (Thomas Watson). God will render to every man according to his works. His holiness is the cause of His justice. Justice flows from His nature. His justice runs in two channels: the distribution of rewards and punishments. Instinctively we know this is true. The sinner’s conscience is the internal witness against him. What God charges upon a sinner, the conscience sets its seal to the truth of it.ᵛⁱ The Lord is known by the justice which He executes (Ps 9:16).

God desires the welfare of mankind (Ps 145:8-9); but God’s love and goodness do not mean that He chooses to be benign toward human sin. It is the nature of God to do good to His creatures and to bestow blessings upon them. He is patient and longsuffering in forbearing to exercise His wrath upon sinners. The delay of His wrath is an inducement to seek personal repentance from sin (Rom 2:1-6). Through Christ He shows His mercy by withholding justice from those who deserve punishment.ᵛⁱⁱ

When we think about the biblical doctrine of hell, it is inseparable from man’s refusal to live as the image-bearer of God. Sin unforgiven and unmortified is a trajectory that ends in perdition. Hell is the consummation of the rebel’s personal history—the destiny of those who reject the truth that life was given so that it might be shaped by God Almighty. Eternal damnation is the penalty for the self-willed who choose to be an enemy of the cross—the very cross that is intended to restore our humanness (Phil 3:17-19). If a person does not take God’s side against his sin—by means of the cross of Christ—it is proof that he is in collusion with the very sin that works to dehumanize him. Hell will be the final stage of dehumanization.

God has given us a faithful testimony concerning the fallen human condition. According to the Word of God, this divine testimony about the human condition is an essential part of the grace of God. When God makes a person a new creature, by sending light into the heart (the saving knowledge of Himself in Christ) (2 Cor 4:6), He first shows the individual the weightiness of the guilt of personal sin. A proper apprehension of holiness is only possible if we have a correct view of human corruption. A wrong view of the human condition will result in a wrong view of the holiness of God and the holiness He requires from us, His creatures.ᵛⁱⁱⁱ

The image of God in man has been radically defaced by sin (Gen 1:26-27). Our created purpose as ‘icons’ of God was to rule with Him, bring fruitful order to the creation, and raise up families and communities grounded upon moral truth the knowledge of God. As His image bearers, we were designed to represent our Creator and to reflect His holy character. As His personal representatives upon the earth, we were formed to serve as ‘creative workmen’ finding joy in our thoughtful, energetic, creative dominion over the earth. The tragedy of the fall into sin is measured by how much we as a race have lost our created purpose—a loss evidenced by the absence of ability to reflect our Creator’s character, greatness, and glory (Rom 3:23). So far down did we fall as a race that instead of reflecting His moral glory and majesty; we began to reflect the opposite of what God is in Himself.ⁱˣ

Therefore, what so easily escapes our notice as complacent sinners is the reality of God’s offense at our transgressions. Our thought processes; words; motives; and deeds, when used in the service of sin, are an affront to God. Our Creator is rightly offended when the benefits, strength, and good things He lavishes upon us are not used as resources to mirror His righteousness, but instead are transformed into weapons against the knowledge of God (2 Cor 10:3-5). Thus, our fallen condition before God is described in His Word as follows: man is under the dominion of sin and death (Rom 5:12-18); man is powerless to reform himself (Rom 8:6-8); man is guilty before God (Rom 2:1-16); man is in the grip of the powers of darkness (Eph 2:1-4).ˣ

Human sin is an insidious disease—it hides its symptoms and terminal state from its victims. The great tragedy of sin’s deception (a deception energized by the powers of darkness —2 Cor 4:4) is that in man’s self-understanding, he actually believes himself to be free. Jesus Christ proclaimed the opposite: apart from salvation, all men are slaves of sin and therefore liable to death and eternal separation from God who is the source of all life, love, light, and blessedness (Jn 8:34-36).

God’s diagnosis of our brokenness by sin reveals the need for man’s re-creation by Christ in order that the distorted image of God may be restored. “It is the glory of the gospel that meets our need.”ˣⁱ Only by deliverance from sin’s guilt and dominion can man live freely for God. And only by rescue from the terrifying wrath of God can we have lives of joy, thanksgiving, and love to God. Under Christ sinners are sheltered from the wrath of God because the Son of God has borne our guilt (Gal 3:13). The gospel is glorious because, by uniting the believing sinner to Christ, it transforms the greatest crisis imaginable into the renewed image of God. From then on, we are made like Christ—enabled to reflect God. Our whole calling in Him is to BE the image of God—persevering in obedience and enjoying shared life with Christ.ˣⁱⁱ

The fact that we are created in the image of God (an image which is rational, relational, and moral) gives us great insights into both the nature of heaven and the nature of hell. This is vital to our discussion. Otherwise it is tempting for men to entertain carnal thoughts about hell—as if it is but a divine tantrum; a fit; a punitive act of vindictiveness and petulance. Nothing could be further from the truth. For our understanding of what hell actually is necessitates that we truly comprehend what man is (his purpose and constitution) and why mankind was created in the first place.

The psalmist says of man’s creation, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Ps 139:14). Mankind is the crown jewel of God’s handiwork. Our dignity and uniqueness are expressed in the term, ‘image of God’ (Ps 8:5). Our creational identity is bound up in our calling to exhibit something of the glory or our Maker—like a still lake reflects the snow-capped peaks above it.

And, our created ability to function as the image of God encompasses the reality that man is a UNITY of both body and soul. The human being has an invisible, spiritual and immortal part of his being known as the soul. According to the Bible, the soul can exist in a conscious state apart from the body (although there is a certain incompleteness in the soul in that disembodied state—2 Cor 5:1-4). Jesus indicated that the body can be killed but the soul cannot be killed (Mt 10:28).ˣⁱⁱⁱ

The Word of God affirms constantly the reality of the immortality of the soul. The two paths (righteousness and wickedness) result in two radically differing destinies: eternal life

and eternal death. Everlasting life is promised to the righteous (Mt 25:46; Jn 5:24), and death and misery to the wicked (Mt 25:46; Rev 14:11).”ˣⁱᵛ But, when Jesus sternly warned of the need to fear God who can destroy body and soul in hell, the destruction He was referencing was not annihilation, or cessation of existence. Everlasting death means everlasting misery. Everlasting life means everlasting happiness.ˣᵛ

This is why we are reiterating that we must understand man’s make-up or constitution (created purpose) if we are to grasp what hell is. Our creational identity as the image of God embraces not only our physical body; but also the faculties of our eternal soul. So, regarding the make-up of our personality, we may accurately say that our responsibility to our Creator is based upon our intellectual and moral nature.

Man’s four-fold division of human personality is as follows: 1) We have been given the power to think. Our cognitive faculty suggests self-awareness and the ability to reason about God, the world around us, and ourselves. Man is created to be a truthful interpreter of God’s works (this involves actively rejecting error). 2) We have been given the ability to feel (emotions and affections). We are emotional beings as well as rational or intellectual. Our affections refer to our capacity to love, hate, cherish, rejoice, grieve, abhor, and to take delight in worthy objects. 3) We have been given a will—the ability to choose. Man’s power to choose is essential to our identity as the image of God. Our creator has vested us with the power to make decisions that shape our life, our world and the lives of others. This is a glorious; but awesome faculty because our choices have significance that is both temporal and eternal. “Upon [a man’s] free choices rides his own destiny as well as the happiness and misery of those who are under his influence.”ˣᵛⁱ 4) We have been given a conscience—the ability to weigh all of our ethical choices. This faculty is known as the conscience. This is the clearest evidence of being made in the moral image of God. These faculties of soul (mind, emotions, will, and conscience) are designed by God to operate in harmony. The conscience is the ‘gatekeeper’ guarding and informing and warning us of choices which are immoral and unrighteous (and praising the choices that are virtuous). Conscience is closely tied to continual self-reflection. And, most importantly to our topic of hell is the fact that conscience is defined as self-consciousness in relation to the moral government of God (that we are accountable to God who governs His moral creatures by His immutable law). The conscience continually provides ‘verdicts’ concerning a person’s moral behavior and responsibility. Scripture refers to this constant activity as, either ‘excusing or accusing’ (Rom 2:15). On judgment day, the possibility of overriding the conscience will be gone forever. On that Day, the book of conscience and God’s books will be in complete agreement (Rev 20:12).ˣᵛⁱⁱ

Mankind as the image of God means, according to Scripture, that we are placed under God’s moral law. That means that our duty under God can be summed up as love to God and neighbor. Transgressing God’s commands always constitute a violation of love. Love to God means a supreme regard for Him in His infinite perfection; it is the valuing of His Person; obedience to His commands; and submission to His will. Thus to love God is to seek to promote the true knowledge of Him—glorifying Him as the only One who is supremely worthy of our praise.ˣᵛⁱⁱⁱ

Man’s endowment of mind, affections, will, and conscience is inseparable from our uniqueness, dignity, and exalted position on the earth. But with this high honor come momentous responsibilities. God has created us to be free moral agents—that means that our choices carry with them lasting consequences and results (this is the very opposite of viewing humans as utterly determined by nature: “biological robots”). The power to choose, know and love God carries with it the potential to despise, devalue, and reject Him. “This moral dignity and freedom is man’s glory and potential shame.”ˣⁱˣ

In other words, every faculty of man’s personality (mind, affections, conscience, will) was a divine provision for the mental, emotional, and moral equipment necessary to render supreme devotion to our wonderful Creator and Benefactor.ˣˣ In other words, mankind was designed and fitted and equipped to “run on God” if you will. But, the entrance of human rebellion drastically changed man. “Truly, this only have I found: that God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes” (Eccl 7:29). The entrance of sin was a disaster of immense proportions. Mankind’s role as God’s representative was compromised to the highest degree. (We are often numb to this disastrous reality of transgression because our life as habitual sinners so fully permeates our present existence—it’s like the proverbial goldfish that does not know it is wet.) What did mankind lose by defecting from His Creator?

First, we will list what mankind did NOT lose by reason of the fall:

• He did not lose the faculties of his soul
• He did not lose his identity as a moral free agent
• He did not lose his conscience (Jn 1:9)
• He did not lose his responsibility
• He did not lose all the benefits of life on our blue planet

What mankind did lose by reason of the fall:

• He lost his original righteousness before God (his mind and affections have been disordered and corrupted—1 Cor 2:14-15)
• He lost his favor with God (Rom 8:7)
• He lost fellowship with God (Rom 5:10)
• He lost his ability to deliver himself (Eph 2:1-2)ˣˣⁱ

We have seen thus far that man’s body and personality have been uniquely created by God in order for man to fulfill his created purpose of knowing, serving, worshipping and enjoying his Creator. And we have seen that by mankind’s defection from God—the ‘sin disaster’—has wreaked ruin and havoc upon our race. In this section we will seek to explain why sin contains its own punishments. God does not have to think up punishments for sin. The reason why is because sin is such a radical deviation from our created purpose and makeup that it carries with it brokenness, shame, guilt, alienation, and horror. Only the mercy of God in Christ can deliver a person from the continual fallout of these lasting consequences (note the urgency).

By defecting from our Creator, we have departed from excellence itself. As mankind descends into degrading idolatry he loses dignity and meaning. Our own moon is defined by its relation to earth. Poems are written about it; men and women fall in love under moonlight. Countless creatures time their breeding cycle by the phases of the moon. The tides produced by the moon keep our bays and estuaries fresh. The moon takes blinding sunlight and reflects it as silvery beams to illumine the night. But, if the moon left its orbit around the earth and spun off into dark space; it would be abandoning its function. That is a picture of fallen mankind— having abandoned our created purpose and orbit around our Creator—we are hurtling into a dark oblivion.

So sin is not merely an error in judgment or simply human imperfection. It is not some toxic material that can be poured in a 50 gallon drum. Sin is radical misalignment to the law of God—the very moral law that permeates the fabric of the universe (1 Jn 3:4). That means that sin makes us wrong with God and with His moral His universe (in a moral universe, it is impossible to take a moral holiday). The bumper sticker that says “Sin is hell” is pretty close to the bull’s eye. Though God has clearly revealed His righteous character and requirements, men dishonor God by breaking His law and choose to regulate their behavior by their desires instead of by God’s perfect rule of duty.

Germaine to our discussion is this: nothing could be more evident than the fact that man has a huge quarrel with God over the issue of what kind of punishment sin deserves (which is why we are dealing with this topic of hell in the first place). God who is infinitely wise and good must be the one who establishes the criterion of what sin deserves. He is holy and righteous; we are not, so it should not surprise us that His judgment differs from ours. We find it unreasonable to bow before His judgment and acknowledge the punishment that sin really deserves. And, realistically says Charles Hodge, “that punishment [pronounced by God] is so awful, that nothing but a profound reverence for God, and some conception of the evil of sin, can produce a sincere acquiescence in its justice.”ˣˣⁱⁱ

In a moral universe it should be no surprise to us that sin is the ultimate cause of suffering and misery. Sin is apostasy from God who the source of all life, light, love, and blessedness. Therefore sin is the ruin of the soul. God’s fixed determination to punish sin is manifested in the connection which He has established between sin and suffering. In other words, there is an undeniable tendency of sin to produce suffering.ˣˣⁱⁱⁱ A runaway 15 year old girl with a heroin needle in her arm and a pimp selling her every night is an unspeakable tragedy —it is not difficult to see the sin and misery connection.

To think that we can escape the evil consequences of transgressions by appealing to the benevolence of God is like imagining that God should suspend the law of gravity on your behalf because you changed your mind a half second after you jumped off of the Golden Gate Bridge. God cannot be mocked—this is a moral universe.ˣˣⁱᵛ The principle of sowing and reaping is built into the universe that you are a part of—and that sowing reaping principle is energized by God. Let me escape the consequences of my sin is like saying, “Let the sun stop shining, suspend the operation of the laws of nature for me.” “The one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption” (Gal 6:8).

Argues Hodge, “Disregard of [God’s] authority is the greatest crime of which a creature is capable.”ˣˣᵛ It is a refusal to be governed by God and it places us in the default position of being in the kingdom of darkness (Col 1:13-14).

We labor to keep our accusing conscience quiet. But we necessarily fail at it. “The slightest review of life therefore is sufficient to overwhelm us with the conviction of the countless multitude of our transgressions.”ˣˣᵛⁱ (Imagine gathering with friends to watch a video and to your horror it is an audiovisual record of every act of sin you have committed from the time you were a toddler.) Hiding from the exposure of our iniquities and our liability to judgment is what is in view here (Jn 3:19-21). Our lives evidence a constant non-conformity to the will of God. Our consciences tell us that sin committed with impunity constitute things worthy of death (Rom 1:32). Yet, our infatuation with trying to meet our needs by sinning is so great, we continue to disobey God in spite of the threat.ˣˣᵛⁱⁱ

In His love, patience, longsuffering and forbearance, God pleads with us to repent and to flee to His Son who is the only refuge for sinners. He calls to us to accept His mediation and reciprocate His love. He assures us that if we come to Him He is ready to be gracious. He who spared not His own Son makes this both an invitation and a warning. The blood of Christ, shed for the remission of sins is a message of the love and justice of God. There is no other provision for sinners to escape eternal condemnation. God pleads with us to repent—He urges us to cease despising His offers of mercy so that we will not store up wrath for ourselves in the day of judgment (Rom 2:4-11).ˣˣᵛⁱⁱⁱ

Are you upset that there is not some eternal ‘halfway’ house for those who defy God’s right to rule over them, who despise His holiness and offers of mercy, and who reject His right to define their existence? Our quarrel with God’s justice (what our sin deserves) is only settled when we bend the knee to Christ and receive His love and forgiving grace. Scripture warns that those who do not obey the gospel shall be punished with everlasting destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power (2 Thess 1:9). Jesus Christ says, “the wicked shall be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched; where their worm shall not die and their fire shall not be quenched (Mark 9:43-44).

At the last great day Christ the Judge will say to those upon His left hand, “depart from Me you cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels” (Mt 25:41). “The Son of man shall send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth” (Mt 13:41-42). In the last day, all that are in their graves shall hear His voice and shall come forth; they that have done good unto a resurrection of life, and they that have done evil unto a resurrection of damnation (Jn 5:29). In the book of Daniel this resurrection to damnation is described as shame and everlasting contempt (Dan 12:2).

Without a doubt these passages are designed to convey the idea of endless and hopeless misery. We can see that the Scriptures depict hell not a state of mind; but as a real place. The sufferings described in these passages are inconceivably great and endless in duration. But, the most fearful exhibition of the future state of the reprobate is that which presents them as abandoned to the unrestrained dominion of evil. “The repressing influence of conscience, of a probationary state, of a regard to character, of good example, and above all, the Holy Spirit, will be withdrawn and unmingled malignity, impurity and violence constitute the character and condition of those who finally perish. The wicked are represented as constantly blaspheming God, while they gnaw their tongues with pain” (Rev 16:10).ˣˣⁱˣ

Perhaps you are thinking, “I would not wish that on my worst enemy!” Friends, it requires a gracious work of God in your heart for you to take God’s side against sin—and especially YOUR sin. Our natural tendency is to take man’s side against God and His holy justice. The graphic nature of the warnings in Scripture are intended to cause us to see the urgency of the situation and the immensity of mercy offered to us in Christ.

Hell is a spiritual and material furnace of fire where its victims are tormented in their minds and their bodies. “Their memories and consciences as well as their raging, unsatisfied lusts torture them. In hell, the place of death, God’s saving grace, mercy, and pity are gone forever, never for a moment to return.”ˣˣˣ “Who can know the power of His anger?” (Ps 90:11). Edwards notes that, “God will be the hell of the one and the heaven of the other.” Says Edwards, the lost, “remember what good things they enjoyed in this world. [While they enjoyed the good things, they “felt nothing of the fiery wrath of God.” Now it is the reverse, in life they were “a great deal better off than many of the godly.” “Of particular poignancy will be their recollection of ‘opportunities’ and means they had for obtaining salvation when ‘God waited to be gracious to them.’ They will remember how they were warned ‘that if once they got into hell they should never get out.’”ˣˣˣⁱ

The conscience in hell will be a place of haunting raging accusation. It will rise up to its full stature as the moral image of God and take its eternal revenge against its ungrateful host. Author and theologian J. I. Packer notes that even in life, a bad conscience is a source of misery. “The more conscientious you are, the more your knowledge of having failed others, and God too. Without forgiveness you will have no peace. A bad conscience delivering at full strength, tearing you to pieces in the name of God, is hell indeed, both here and hereafter.”ˣˣˣⁱⁱ

Scripture precludes the idea of annihilation. The Bible teaches eternal punishment. Revelation 6:15-16 poignantly describes the scene of the wicked longing for annihilation, “And they said to the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come; and who is able to stand?” The concept of annihilation is inconsistent with man’s soul which is immortal and never to be destroyed. In perdition, the lost will find God’s wrathful presence inescapable.ˣˣˣⁱⁱⁱ

Let us never forget that the Lord Jesus Christ who is God’s love and truth incarnate is the major speaker in the Word on the reality of hell. It is from His lips that the most disturbing warnings issue. Some, in wanting to soften His warnings have suggested that the terms He used to describe hell were symbols only of separation from God. Attempts to ‘defang’ Christ’s descriptions willfully ignore that the images used by Christ are intended to point to a reality worse than the symbol suggests. If the symbols are but metaphors for separation from God; then what is missing from that interpretation is the reality of the presence of divine wrath. In Scripture, God’s wrath is compared to a consuming fire (Heb 12:29).ˣˣˣⁱᵛ

The severity of the punishment in hell begs the question, “How can a God of love deliver a sentence that appears so cruel?” R. C. Sproul follows this line of thought noting that “No matter how we analyze the concept of hell it often sounds to us as a place of cruel and unusual punishment.”ˣˣˣᵛ Because of God’s holy and perfect nature, we can take assurance that there will be no cruelty in hell. It is not possible for God to be cruel—cruelty involves inflicting misery and pain that is more severe or harsh than the crime merits. “Cruelty in this sense is unjust. God is incapable of inflicting an unjust punishment. The Judge of all the earth will surely do what is right. No innocent person will ever suffer at His hand.”ˣˣˣᵛⁱ

“Hell, then, is an eternity before the righteous, ever-burning wrath of God, a suffering torment from which there is no escape and no relief. Understanding this is crucial to our drive to appreciate the work of Christ and to preach the gospel.”ˣˣˣᵛⁱⁱ God’s character is known by His law and by the giving of His Son for sinners.

The growing trend toward moral relativism in America (that moral truth is relative to the individual) is showing up as disgust toward the biblical doctrine of divine retribution. “. . . The most fundamental belief in American culture is that moral truth is relative to individual consciousness. Our culture, therefore, has no problem with a God of love who supports us no matter how we live.” C. S. Lewis, in his book The Abolition of Man, outlines the major differences between modern and ancient concepts of moral truth. In historic times (ancient) “it was understood that there was a transcendent moral order outside of self, built into the fabric of the universe. If you violated that metaphysical order there were consequences just as severe as if violated physical reality.”xxxviii

For the majority of the history of the world, moral cosmology was viewed as the heart of reality (as opposed to today’s very prevalent philosophic naturalism/materialism). Modernity reversed this. “Instead of trying to shape our desires to fit reality, we now seek to control and shape reality to fit our desires” (Tim Keller). Modernity, in assuming that there is no transcendent moral order, gave us permission to choose right and wrong for ourselves.ˣˣˣⁱˣ

What we call progress and freedom; it is smug at best. God calls it bondage to sin and darkness. Modernism amputated the soul of man in the name of autonomous freedom, but in the process pushed man off of a cliff to plunge naked into a black cesspool of razor wire (Vishal Mangalwadi).

Author and Christian thinker C. S. Lewis counsels:

We shall be slaves and puppets of that to which we have given our souls. It is in man’s power to treat himself as a mere natural object and his own judgments of value as raw material for scientific manipulation to alter at will. Reduce man to raw material and he is dehumanized. Reject [transcendent moral order] . . . and [you will] fall into a position in which all we have are natural impulses. A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.ˣˡ

“In America we believe so deeply in our personal rights in this realm that the very idea of a divine Judgment Day seems impossible” (Keller). Timothy Keller makes a shrewd observation about our deepest instincts concerning what is right: we take no offense at a forgiving God; but take great umbrage at a judging God. Why should Western sensibilities ‘trump’ the cultural sensibilities non-Western ones? Says Keller, “If Christianity were the truth it would have to be offending and correcting your thinking at some place. Maybe this is the place, [at the point of] the doctrine of divine judgment.”ˣˡⁱ

God’s wrath is not antithetical to His attribute of love. If God took no decisive action in removing injustice and deception AND, He did not make a final end to violence and evil, He would not be worthy of worship. “The only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that violence is legitimate only when it comes from God.” It is unbelief in a God who judges and who takes vengeance that “secretly nourishes violence.”ˣˡⁱⁱ History has proven this to be true more times than can be counted (Rom 12:17-21).

The Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz remembers how Karl Marx had called religion the opiate of the people. Milosz examines Marx’s views and concludes:

A true opium of the people is a belief in the nothingness after death—the huge solace of thinking that our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders are not going to be judged . . . but all religions recognize that our deeds are imperishable.ˣˡⁱⁱⁱ

Author Milosz has personally seen that loss in a belief in the imminent justice of God can lead to brutality of ghastly proportions (Nazism and Communism). Milosz argues that the truth of final justice dispensed by God is necessary “for human practices of love and peacemaking.”ˣˡⁱᵛ

The human soul arrays itself against God—this is the trajectory of the soul that ends up in hell as its destiny (Col 1:21). Hell is the destiny of the individual who lives a self-absorbed, self-directed, self-centered life. Eternal perdition is the continuation of that trajectory. Since God is the source of all absolute truth, life, light, love, identity, blessedness, and belonging; those who reject God as the source are granted their wish to live without God forever. Hell is the consequence of choosing an identity apart from God—of choosing to define life for oneself while rejecting your Creator’s absolute right to define all of human existence.ˣˡᵛ

We were created to find the joy of our human unity in God. This is why sin so seriously fragments us. Only our infinite Creator can bring wholeness to our souls. God has put eternity in our hearts (Eccl 3:11). A finite integration point can’t ultimately satisfy us. It may promise us fulfillment, satisfaction and wholeness; but it cannot deliver. When we grant something in the creation the role reserved for God (that of integrating us) it becomes an idol that actually fragments and degrades us. “Personal disintegration happens on a broader scale [in hell]. In eternity, this disintegration goes on forever. There is increasing isolation, denial, delusion, and self-absorption.”ˣˡᵛⁱ

C. S. Lewis makes an incredibly pointed remark about hell being the consummation of a life in orbit around self instead of God, “Hell is . . . the greatest monument to human freedom.” Scripture tells us that God gave them over to their desires (Rom 1:24). This is shocking but true—in the end, God gives people what they want most—freedom from Himself and His claims upon them. Both Christians and secularists “believe that self-centeredness and cruelty have very harmful consequences. Because Christians believe souls don’t die, they also believe that moral and spiritual errors [rebellion] affect the soul forever.”ˣˡᵛⁱⁱ Lewis remarks that there are but two kinds of people, those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to God will say, “Thy will be done.”ˣˡᵛⁱⁱⁱ Packer says that those in hell are given their preference: that is they preferred to be by themselves, without God, defying God, having God against them.

How radical the changes are in an individual that are made by the gospel. The entire center of the person shifts from self to Christ and His saving work for sinners.

A common objection today is that a God of love would not punish and judge people. But, reasons Keller, the very notion of God’s love is not traceable to pagan religion or to Islam. The truth that God is love comes from the Bible. God who did not spare His own Son but delivered Him up for us all—that is the ultimate expression of love (Rom 8:32). In the N.T. the love of God is always given to sinners in Christ. “And the witness is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 Jn 5:11). “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4 is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son” (1 Jn 5:11). “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 Jn 4:10).

God draws us to Himself with the gloriousness of the gospel—for the gospel announces that God is prepared to deal with guilty men on the ground of free favor and mercy. This is incredibly good news to defiled consciences. The good news of the gospel proclaims that God the Judge is prepared to pardon transgressions and justify the ungodly (Rom 4:5). By means of Christ suffering in the place of sinners, God is ready to take us from the curse of the Law and give us the blessedness of righteousness as an act of pure mercy. But this is good news ONLY for those who have despaired of providing their own righteousness and favor with God (Gal 3:10-13). How radical the changes are in an individual that are made by the gospel. The entire center of the person shifts from self to Christ and His saving work for sinners. Our entire potential to know God is stipulated upon knowing Him in Christ.

Endnotes:

i John Calvin, Biblical Christianity, Abridgement by B. R. Wood, Grace Publications, 1982, p. 11.
ii Ibid, pp. 12-13.
iii Ibid, p. 18.
iv John Owen, Thinking Spiritually, Abridgement by Philip Grist, Grace Publications, 1989, pp. 42-43.
v Thomas Watson, A Body of Divinity, Banner of Truth, pp. 84-86.
vi Ibid, pp. 86-89.
vii John Thornbury, Systematic Bible Doctrine, Evangelical Press, 2003, p. 21.
viii J. C. Ryle in Ferguson, The Christian Life, p. 10. J. C. Ryle, Holiness, James Clarke, Cambridge, 1952, p. 1.
ix Sinclair Ferguson, The Christian Life, The Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh, 1981, pp. 10-12.
x Ibid, pp. 13-15.
xi Ibid, p. 16.
xii Ibid, pp. 16-17.
xiii John Thornbury, pp. 57-59.
xiv Ibid, p. 59.
xv Ibid.
xvi Ibid, p. 60.
xvii Ibid, p. 61.
xviii Ibid, p. 62.
xix Ibid, p. 63.
xx Ibid, p. 64.
xxi Ibid, pp. 68-72.
xxii Charles Hodge, The Way of Life, Baker Book House, 1977, reprint, p. 63.
xxiii Ibid, p. 67.
xxiv Ibid, p. 68.
xxv Ibid, p. 71.
xxvi Ibid, p. 74.
xxvii Ibid, pp. 74-75.
xxviii Ibid, pp. 76.
xxix Ibid, p. 66.
xxx John Gerstner, Jonathan Edwards: A Mini-theology, Tyndale House, 1987, p. 105.
xxxi Edwards quoted in Gerstner, p. 107.
xxxii J. I. Packer, I want to be a Christian, Tyndale, 1977, p. 91.
xxxiii Gerstner, pp. 108-109.
xxxiv R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith, Tyndale, 1992, pp. 285-286.
xxxv Ibid, p. 286.
xxxvi Ibid.
xxxvii Ibid.
xxxviii Timothy Keller, The Reason for God, Dutton, 2008, pp. 70-71.
xxxix Ibid, p. 71.
xl C. S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man, pp. 68-73.
xli Keller, p. 73.
xlii Miroslav Volf in Keller, p. 74. Miroslav Volf, Exclusion and Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity,
Otherness, and Reconciliation, Abington, 1996, pp. 303-304.
xliii Czeslaw Milosz in Keller, p. 75. Czeslaw Milosz, “The Discreet Charm of Nihilism,” New York Review of
Books, 11.19.1998.
xliv Keller, p. 76.
xlv Ibid, p. 78.
xlvi Ibid.
xlvii Ibid, p. 80.
xlviii C. S. Lewis in Keller, p. 79.