Many people in our world have only ever heard hell talked about as the place reserved for those who are “out,” who don’t believe, who haven’t “joined the church.” Christians talking about people who aren’t Christians going to hell when they die because they aren’t . . . Christians. People who don’t believe the right things.
But in reading all of the passages in which Jesus uses the word “hell,” what is so striking is that people believing the right or wrong things isn’t his point. He’s often not talking about “beliefs” as we think of them—he’s talking about anger and lust and indifference. He’s talking about the state of his listeners’ hearts, about how they conduct themselves, how they interact with their neighbors, about the kind of effect they have on the world.
Jesus did not use hell to try and compel “heathens” and “pagans” to believe in God, so they wouldn’t burn when they die. He talked about hell to very religious people to warn them about the consequences of straying from their God-given calling and identity to show the world God’s love.
This is not to say that hell is not a pointed, urgent warning or that it isn’t intimately connected with what we actually do believe, but simply to point out that Jesus talked about hell to the people who considered themselves “in,” warning them that their hard hearts were putting their “in-ness” at risk, reminding them that whatever “chosen-ness” or “election” meant, whatever special standing they believed they had with God was always, only, ever about their being the kind of transformed, generous, loving people through whom God could show the world what God’s love looks like in flesh and blood.
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Now, on to the passages that seem to be talking about hell, but don’t mention it specifically. Let’s start with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the poster cities for deviant sinfulness run amok. In Genesis 19 we read that the city of Sodom has so lost its way, “the outcry to the LORD against its people is so great,” that burning sulfur rains down from the heavens, “destroying all those living in the cities—and also the vegetation in the land.”
“Early the next morning Abraham . . . looked down toward Sodom and Gomorrah . . . and he saw dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace.”
And so for thousands of years the words “Sodom and Gomorrah” have served as a warning, an ominous sign of just what happens when God decides to judge swiftly and decisively.
But this isn’t the last we read of Sodom and Gomorrah.
The prophet Ezekiel had a series of visions in which God shows him what’s coming, including the promise that God will “restore the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters” and they will “return to what they were before” (chap. 16).
Restore the fortunes of Sodom?
The story isn’t over for Sodom and Gomorrah?
What appeared to be a final, forever, smoldering, smoking verdict regarding their destiny . . . wasn’t?
What appeared to be over, isn’t.
Ezekiel says that where there was destruction there will be restoration.
But that still isn’t the last we hear of these two cities. As Jesus travels from village to village in Galilee, calling people to see things in a whole new way, he encounters great resistance in some areas, especially among the more religious and devout. In Matthew 10, he warns the people living in the village of Capernaum, “It will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for you.”
More bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah?
He tells highly committed, pious, religious people that it will be better for Sodom and Gomorrah than them on judgment day?
There’s still hope?
And if there’s still hope for Sodom and Gomorrah, what does that say about all of the other Sodoms and Gomorrahs?
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This story, the one about Sodom and Gomorrah, isn’t the only place we find this movement from judgment to restoration, from punishment to new life.
In Jeremiah 32, God says, “I will surely gather them from all the lands where I banish them in my furious anger and great wrath; I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety.”
Israel had been exiled, sent away, “banished” to a foreign land, the result of God’s “furious anger and great wrath.” But there’s a point to what the prophet interprets and understands to be God’s “anger and wrath.” It’s to teach the people, to correct them, to produce something new in them.
In Jeremiah 5, the prophet says, “You crushed them, but they refused correction.” That’s the point, according to the prophet, of the crushing. To bring about correction.
According to the prophets,
God crushes,
refines,
tests,
corrects,
chastens,
and rebukes—
but always with a purpose.
No matter how painful, brutal, oppressive, no matter how far people find themselves from home because of their sin, indifference, and rejection, there’s always the assurance that it won’t be this way forever.
In Lamentations 3, the poet declares:
“People are not cast off by the Lord forever,
though he brings grief, he will show compassion,
so great is his unfailing love.”
In Hosea 14 God says:
“I will heal their waywardness and love them freely
for my anger has turned away from them.”
In chapter 3 Zephaniah says:
God “will take great delight in you;
in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
but will rejoice over you with singing.”
No more anger, no more punishment, rebuke, or refining—
at some point
healing
and reconciling
and return.
God promises in Isaiah 57: “I will guide them and restore comfort to them.”
In Hosea 6: “On the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.”
In Joel 3: “In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem . . .”
In Amos 9: “I will restore David’s fallen shelter.”
In Nahum 2: “The LORD will restore the splendor of Jacob.”
In Zephaniah 2: “The LORD their God will care for them; he will restore their fortunes.”
In Zephaniah 3: “I will give you honor and praise among all the peoples of the earth when I restore your fortunes before your very eyes.”
In Zechariah 9: “Even now I announce that I will restore twice as much to you.”
In Zechariah 10: “I will restore them because I have compassion on them.”
And in Micah 7: “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.”
I realize that that’s a lot of Bible verses, but I list them to simply show how dominant a theme restoration is in the Hebrew scriptures. It comes up again and again and again. Sins trodden underfoot, iniquities hurled into the depths of the sea. God always has an intention.
Healing.
Redemption.