Now, That's a Good Question! by Sproul R. C

Author:Sproul, R. C.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Christian Life / General
Publisher: Tyndale House (eBook)
Published: 2013-08-31T16:00:00+00:00

Would you describe hell as you see it, and conversely heaven?

I was once asked that question by a student who put it to me this way, “Do you believe that hell is a literal lake of fire, where people are burning and in torment? Do you think there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth, darkness, and a place where the worm never dies?” He asked if I believed hell was literally like that, and I said no, I didn’t. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief. Then I said that I thought a person who is in hell would do everything in his power to be in a lake of fire rather than to be where he is. I really have no graphic picture of hell in my mind, but I can’t think of any concept more terrifying to the human consciousness than that concept. I know that it’s a very unpopular concept and that even Christians shrink in horror at the very idea of a place called hell.

I’ve always wondered about two phenomena that we find in the New Testament. One, that Jesus speaks more of hell than he does of heaven. Two, almost everything that we know about hell in the New Testament comes from the lips of Jesus. I’m just guessing that in the economy of God, people wouldn’t bear it from any other teacher. They’re not going to listen if R. C. Sproul warns them of the dreadful consequences of hell or if some other person does. People don’t believe in it even when Jesus teaches it. It’s like we’re proving the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Dives wanted to go back and warn his brothers of the wrath that was to come. Jesus said they wouldn’t believe even if somebody came back from the dead. People just don’t want to pay any attention to it.

I ask myself this question: Why did Jesus, when he was teaching about the nature of hell, use the most ghastly symbols and images he could think of to describe that place? Whenever we talk about symbols or images, we use a symbol to represent a reality. The reality always exceeds in its substance what the symbol contains. If the images of the New Testament view of hell are but images and symbols, then that would mean to me that the reality is much, much worse than the literal symbols we are given.

Conversely, I would say that the good news is the marvelous images we have of heaven: streets of gold, crystal lakes, a city with buildings of precious stones. The literal fulfillment would be dazzling and wonderful, but I would think that it’s going to be incomparably greater. Again, in this case, the reality will far exceed the images that the Bible uses to communicate to us, who are limited to an earthly perspective.

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