‘We must remember that the very person who revealed most
stunningly God’s love, our Lord Jesus Christ, is also the one who spoke most
frequently and in most frightening words of the tragedy of the lost. It is a dangerous thing to be more generous
than God has revealed himself to be!’ (Roger Nicole).
In his book, ‘Why I am not a Christian’, the
philosopher, Bertrand Russell, writes, ‘There is one very serious defect to my
mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is
really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.'
Jesus certainly believed in hell. In fact, He taught about hell more than anyone
else in the Bible. He
was not embarrassed or shocked about it, but He grieved at the thought that
people would reject His offer of salvation and receive the consequences of that
choice. Jesus warned people about hell
because He loved them.
I want to look at one of Jesus’ best-known
parables on this topic—the parable of the rich man and Lazarus.
Don’t let stuff keep you out of heaven
Jesus has just warned his religious opponents
that it is impossible to serve both God and money (Lk. 16:13). Now he tells them a parable of a man who
lived for money and ended up in hell (Lk. 16:19-31). Jesus calls us to put Him before everything
else. Stuff will keep us out of heaven,
when stuff stops us following Jesus. It
is a terrible choice to live for what cannot satisfy and lose out on eternal
joy.
This rich man had everything that money could
buy. He was a self-indulgent person who
cared for no-one but himself. He dressed
in purple, which was extremely expensive, and could only be afforded by the
wealthy. He wanted people to see how
rich he was! He also wore fine
linen. He feasted every day.
At the gates of the rich man’s house lay a beggar. He was laid there because he was too sick to
walk. He was covered in sores and longed
to eat what fell from the rich man’s table.
The man in town who was best equipped to meet his medical needs didn’t
even give him his scraps. Kenneth Bailey
points out that in Middle Eastern villages things were compact, so Lazarus
could hear what was going on at the rich man’s banquets. In fact, the guests
could not ignore Lazarus as they entered the rich man’s gate. However, the rich man’s guard dogs showed him
kindness as they licked his wounds.
Lazarus had one thing that the rich man did
not have—Jesus gives him a name. In
fact, Lazarus is the only person named in any of Jesus’ parables, so his name
must be significant. The name Lazarus
means, ‘the one who God helps.’ This is
significant, Lazarus knows God and knows that God is for him. What a contrast this passage is to those
prosperity preachers on the television who tell you that it is always God’s
will for His people to be healthy and wealthy.
Lazarus was living his best life now, and yet that life included a lot
of pain.
Who would you prefer to be?
So, who would you prefer to be? Would you prefer to live in luxury and not
know Jesus, or could you enjoy Jesus even though your life involved sickness
and suffering? Where is your hope? Is your hope in retail therapy and status or
is your hope in the God who cares for you in life and who promises to bring you
to His heavenly home?
Lazarus dies, and he is taken by the angels
to Abraham’s side. In life he was
carried to the rich man’s gates by his friends.
In death, it is the angels who carry him to his heavenly home. It is not that rich men can’t go to
heaven. Abraham was a rich man who did
not put his riches before God. Abraham
is also seen as the father of all who put their faith in God. Lazarus had been rejected in life, but he is
eternally accepted.
While Lazarus was probably thrown anonymously
into the community pauper’s grave, the rich man subsequently dies and is
buried. No doubt it was a large funeral
with many people saying kind things about him.
However, the rich man goes straight to hell.
In hell there is no repentance
It is important to notice that the rich man
continues to be self-absorbed in hell.
He looks up and sees Abraham, with Lazarus at
his side. He addresses Abraham as his
father. He had not cared to obey the
Bible’s teaching on care for those in need, but he thinks that he should be in
heaven because of his Jewish heritage.
Abraham may have been his genetic father, but sadly Abraham was not his
spiritual father. Jesus is very clear in
teaching us that it is not religious rituals or cultural background that puts
people right with God. Like Abraham we are put right with God by simply trusting in
the life-transforming promises of God (Genesis 15:6).
The rich man asks Abraham to
have mercy on him, and to send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water
and ‘cool my tongue for me, for I am in anguish in the flame’ (24). It is noteworthy that the rich man recognises
Lazarus and knows his name. He had not
been unaware of the person who had sat at his gate. Yet he had never done anything to help
Lazarus. Now he demands that Lazarus
serves him! There is no change of
attitude in hell.
We might have hoped that the
rich man would have looked at Lazarus and apologised to him, but he doesn’t
even speak to Lazarus. He doesn’t talk to people like beggars. He
simply asks that Lazarus be sent to him as a servant. Hell is a place of
regret, but not a place of repentance. People continue in hell as they
have lived—with themselves at the centre of their concerns. If you haven’t centred your life on the
person of Jesus, you might not like hell, but heaven will actually not be that appealing.
Abraham tells the rich man
that a great chasm has been fixed between heaven and hell. There is no
crossing over. We might understand why someone would want to leave hell,
but why would Abraham have to mention that you cannot cross from heaven to
hell? Perhaps, because Lazarus is at Abraham’s side saying, ‘I’ll go and
serve him!’
It is the hardness of our
hearts that result in people going to hell
Having asked for Lazarus to be
his servant he now asks Abraham to send him as an errand boy. Send him to
my father’s house—for I have five brothers (28). The rich man is only concerned about his own
people. Even tyrants can be concerned about their family. Abraham
tells him that if they have ignored God’s word (referred to here as ‘Moses and
the Prophets’) then someone coming back from the dead won’t cause them to
repent.
A number of years ago someone
gave me a copy of a talk by someone who claimed to have spent twenty minutes in
hell. I was somewhat sceptical. I knew one church that played this talk in
their service. The problem is that Jesus
is saying that such a talk will be of no use in bringing people to faith. If we reject the teaching of God not even
someone coming back from the dead will change our mind.
In John’s Gospel there was
another Lazarus that Jesus did raise from the dead, yet there were many who saw
that amazing miracle and still refused to turn to Christ. The reason
people don’t put their trust in Jesus is not because they don’t have enough
evidence. It has a lot more to do with the hardness of our hearts and our
refusal to let go of all the other things we put before God. What the rich man had put before God was
money and luxury. We run from the light
for fear our evil deeds will be exposed.
Jesus died that we could be
spared hell
It is important to notice
where in Luke’s gospel this story has been told. Luke has shown us that Jesus had set his face
for Jerusalem where He was going to die for His people’s sins (Luke 9:51). He would endure hell so that we need not. Jesus not only warns people about hell, He
experienced hell in our place.
It is not only stuff that causes people to go
to hell, it is anything that we put in the place of God. Perhaps you don’t want to follow Jesus
because you are scared of what people will think. Maybe you don’t want to follow Jesus because
you are scared of what He will ask you to do.
That would be a sad mistake to make.
Jesus loves you more than any friend can, He can satisfy you more than
any purchase, and He will guide your life in ways that will be for your
spiritual good. Even if that means, like
Lazarus, you have to endure sickness and poverty in this life.
Heaven and hell are where the story ends
Finally, notice how final this story is.
There are those who suggest that there will
be a second chance to repent after we have died. They base this opinion on a text that has
been open to a wide variety of interpretations (1 Pet. 3:19-20 and 4:6[. The problem is that their interpretation of
this text seems to contradict the clear teaching of other texts that are more
straight-forward. It is not wise to base
a questionable conclusion of a very debated understanding of a text that is
open to a variety of interpretations, especially if the conclusion you are
reaching seems at odds with the clear teaching of other more straight-forward
passages of Scripture. The author to the
Hebrews seems to exclude the idea of post death conversion when he writes that
it is appointed for people to die once and then face judgement (Heb,
9:27). The other problem is that it does
not seem that people are capable of repentance after they have died (Rev.
22:11). As we have seen in this chapter,
Jesus teaches us that in hell, people may experience regret, but they do not
experience a softening of heart.
Another dead end is the doctrine of
purgatory. This doctrine has a long
history in the Christian church, but it is a clear contradiction of the
gospel. It is actually a teaching that
takes away from the glory and completeness of Jesus’ work on the cross.
I was at the funeral of the mother of a
friend of mine. The priest actually
claimed that it was not a Christian teaching to believe that people go straight
to heaven when they die. That is a clear
contradiction of what we have seen of Lazarus in this passage. The priest said that no one could go to
heaven until they had been perfected and that we could help my friend’s mother
on her way through our prayers, and even in the mass that was being offered. The priest was actually reflecting the
Catechism of the Catholic Church, which reads, ‘all who die in God’s grace
and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their
eternal salvation, but after death, they undergo purification, so as to achieve
the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.’
Yet when Jesus died, he cried
‘it is finished’ (John. 19:30). Nothing
further needed to be done to save people from their guilt. No Christian is perfect (Phil. 3:12). We deny the truth if we claim that we no
longer sin (1 John. 1:8). But a great
exchange has taken place in the life of those who believe. In Jesus, I am considered righteous, as His
righteous life is gifted to me and as I realise that all my sin has been
removed by His sacrificial death. It is
not our perfection that will get us into heaven, it is Jesus’ perfection that
will take us there. Because of Jesus the
Christian no longer lives under condemnation (Rom. 8:1), and we can be assured
that to depart from this life is to go and be with Christ (Phil. 1:23).
Conclusion
So how do we answer Bertrand Russell’s
objection to Jesus, that no humane person could believe in hell? We can begin by pointing out that when we
read the gospel there is no one who has compassion like Jesus. Say what you like about Him, but you cannot
deny that He is a man of love. But love
is not the only attribute of God: so is goodness. A loving and good God cannot be indifferent
to the evil that human beings do. In
fact, Jesus’ love is so strong for humanity that He gave His life for people
(Gal. 2:20). He experienced hell so that
we would not need to. Jesus speaks about
hell, not to frighten people, but to lovingly warn them. He teaches the reality of hell so that we
might escape its terrors. If we do not
heed His loving warnings the fault will be entirely ours. May God give us the courage to follow His
loving example and warn people about the consequences of their choice about
Jesus.
Let’s pray:
‘Lord
Jesus, you were not ashamed to talk about hell.
Forgive me that at times I am embarrassed by what you taught so
clearly. Help me love people enough to
bring this topic up with them. Help me
love people the way you love people.
Help people understand the gospel and have the opportunity to know your
forgiveness. Amen’.
No comments:
Post a Comment