I was struck by the following quotes as I read Dane Ortlund’s sobering new booklet Is Hell Real? (Crossway), part of the 9Marks Church Questions series.
The doctrine of hell is a vital part of living well amid the miseries of this world. It may be painful for a patient to be told he has a rapidly spreading cancer, but this news is crucial for him to hear if he is to receive treatment, get his affairs in order, and live his remaining days meaningfully. (9)
Hell is needed, awful, close, and deserved by every one of us. But there is a way to avoid going there. (9–10)
The real scandal of this universe is not that there is a hell, deserved by all, but that there is a heaven, offered to all. (11)
Hell is not a problem. The absence of hell would be a problem. Hell is the affirmation that God is a God of justice, of fairness, of dealing with humans in a way that is right. (12)
If we do not believe in hell—if we think the only justice and retribution to be had is in this life—then we must take revenge into our own hands. Without hell, justice must be forcibly executed by us, or it will not be executed at all. (12)
Forgiveness itself, that beautiful Christian action that the world reveres, becomes elusive without hell. . . . How can I forgive the one who has hurt me without the knowledge that God will right all wrongs in the next life? The very act of forgiveness is founded on the notion that I am overlooking now what God will not overlook. (13)
What if all wrongs were never righted but simply hung in the air of injustice eternally, never vindicated, never addressed, never brought out into the light? What if all wrongs against you were yours to sort out, before you die—not God’s to sort out, after you die? That would be hellish indeed. And that is precisely how the world tends to operate and how many Christians wrongly operate—thinking justice must be exacted by them, in the present; not by God, in the future. But calm and peace begin to break out in this world when we believe in hell—when we settle into our hearts the comforting reality that God himself will right all wrongs one day far more precisely and justly than we could ever hope. (14)
In heaven, all the sins and scars of this life become beauty marks that ennoble us all the more (Rom. 8:17–18); in hell, our sins and scars torment us. In heaven, joy squeezes out any opportunity for sadness. In hell, sadness squeezes out any opportunity for joy. (18)
There’s a word for heaven without Jesus: hell. (18)
Hell is not for the worst people. It is for the impenitent people. (24)
The point is this: a penitent murderer goes to heaven; an impenitent orphanage founder goes to hell. That may offend you. But anything else is works righteousness. . . . All our bad does not make us harder to save, and all our good does not make us easier to save. What saves us is Christ, and therefore all we contribute is honesty—admitting we are sinners and casting ourselves on him. (24)
No one spoke about hell more than Jesus . . . because he, more than anyone, saw the true frightfulness of it. (25–26)
No one who ever lived across the centuries of human history will receive injustice from God. Some will receive mercy. The rest will receive justice. No one is ever treated by God unfairly. (27–28)
We tend to think that the default destiny of all people is heaven, and hell is reserved for the particularly wicked. But in truth our default destiny is hell, and heaven is reserved for those who have the honesty to admit it and look to Christ. (31)
Unlike every other religion, Christianity does not provide step-by-step instructions for what we must do to avoid hell; it provides a Savior who endured hell in our place, if we will simply have the humility to admit it should have been us. The Bible does not give us steps to take or a list of duties to fulfill as if avoiding hell were like building a bunk bed. The Bible gives us a Rescuer. (38)
Jesus endured hell in the place of all those who wind up in heaven. (39)
You can avoid hell. Anyone can avoid hell. Heaven is not for the deserving; it is for the repentant. Hell is not for the undeserving; it is for the unrepentant. As I’ve heard my dad say, hell is filled with people who think they should be in heaven; heaven is filled with people who know they should be in hell. (41)
If you were on death row for committing a series of horrific crimes, and full exoneration were offered to you if you would simply receive it by acknowledging that you were indeed guilty—would you object that some other way out of your guilt had not been provided? How arrogant of us to demand another way, when full acquittal has been offered to us! (42)
The astonishing surprise at the heart of the universe is not that there is only one way to get to heaven. The astonishing surprise is that there is any way to get to heaven for miserable sinners such as us. (42–43)
Hell is avoidable. Praise God. (43)
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