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Exchanged Glory: A Vision of Freedom
Many say as much when they joke that they want to be in hell where the fun people are. They are wrong in thinking that God would make the penalty more fun than the reward, but they are right in saying that heaven is not a place where a sinner could be happy.
Before I leave the subject of the wrath and mercy of God, I want to devote a little space to the question of whether hell is a just punishment. I mentioned earlier that the God of the Bible looked like a cruel tyrant to me. His penalties seemed overly harsh. I want to shed a little more light on His judgment before moving on.
The main reason that hell appeared to be unfair was that the punishment didn’t seem to fit the crime. A lake of fire, or whatever it symbolized, looked too severe.
The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are. And they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. …And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire.
The lake may be figurative, like many other symbols in the Book of Revelation, but that takes nothing away from its horror. Would any of us like to end up in a punishment that is symbolized by a lake of fire? Whatever it is, we know that it will be so painful that people will wail and gnash their teeth.
So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.
Jesus told us not to fear men and what they can do to us but to fear God. Men are capable of hurting us for a lifetime (and they can make that lifetime quite painful), but hell is worse because it is forever.
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.
As I thought about eternal judgment when I was younger, something in the moral math didn’t add up. The worst sinner on the earth only sins for several decades, yet the penalty is forever. How is that fair? Don’t prisoners get set free after they have served their time? Jesus compared sin to a debt. Why can’t we pay off our debt? I didn’t mind that there was punishment, but eternal punishment seemed cruel and unusual.
I didn’t realize that those who reject Jesus in this life won’t have the ability to escape their sinful nature in eternity. I thought that when people came before the judgment seat of God and saw what they had done, they would repent and submit. I couldn’t imagine that they would continue to rebel once they had spent a little time in eternity’s furnace.
My experience with my own sin helped me to realize the hold that it can have on a person. When I thought I had to totally stop disobeying in order to escape hell, I told God He might as well open up the ground and take me down. I didn’t know how to stop.
There is no reason to conclude that those who have become slaves to sin in this life will suddenly be able to find freedom in the next.
I eventually realized that the only way to escape our twisted nature is through faith in Jesus, who died and rose from the dead to deliver us from its hold. He gives us the ability to break away in this life, and in heaven we will receive a resurrected body that is so free and pure that temptation will no longer be an issue.
…who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.
Only Christians have this kind of promise; unbelievers do not. They have chosen their nature, and they will have to live with it for eternity. When Jesus tells the parable of the sheep and the goats at the judgment seat, the goats remain goats throughout eternity (Matthew 25:31-46). When the disobedient appear before Him, Jesus won’t say, “Depart from me you who once practiced lawlessness,” but “Depart from me you who practice lawlessness.” (Matthew 7:23) The lawlessness is ongoing, as is the judgment.
Then the fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and his kingdom became full of darkness; and they gnawed their tongues because of the pain. They blasphemed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, and did not repent of their deeds.
I believe these verses describe judgment that God brings on the earth, but they show us how human beings often react to God’s judgment. I expect that many will react in the same way in hell. The rebellious won’t repent; they will blaspheme God more. Each new blasphemy will bring a new reason for their judgment to continue.
Even without God’s punishment, sinful desires will bring their own judgment. Unbelievers will experience their misled lusts with no opportunity to fulfill them. They will be forever obsessed with what they can never have. If they want to escape from their unrest, there will be no chance to make a decision for Jesus and find contentment.
All of this makes my spirit tremble. The stakes are extremely high. What a fearful prospect to end up with the disease of sin in an eternity that offers no cure. I can see why people will wail and gnash their teeth.
Along with this, those who don’t want God in this life could never be happy in His home in the next. If they don’t like church, they certainly won’t like heaven, which is church magnified a thousand times. Many say as much when they joke that they want to be in hell where the fun people are. They are wrong in thinking that God would make the penalty more fun than the reward, but they are right in saying that heaven is not a place where a sinner could be happy.
In eternity, there is no place where a sinner could be happy.
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