42. And This Is Hell!
And This Is Hell! This is hell. For hell is ultimately a place, only because it is primarily a character. For when a character becomes fixed in rebellion against the will of God, reason demands that there should be some place where such characters can be forever separated from those who have chosen obedience to the divine will. And so, in perfect harmony with what reason demands, we read in the Word of God that there is such a place. We read also that it was prepared for the devil and his angels, when they fell. That is, it was prepared as a place only after the characters that demand such a place had come into existence (Matthew 25:41). And this is the place where human beings who die in their sins will go, and appropriately enough. For their characters are modeled after the precise pattern of those of Satan and his angels, for all of them came into their condition of sin by choosing their own wills and becoming intolerant of God’s will.
What an unspeakably awful place hell must be; a place beyond the imagination of man to conceive. Think of the uncounted myriads of beings who will never know any law but their own wills, from which it is impossible to escape, thrown into eternal association with each other! Would you like to be one of such a company? Yet you must be—there is no escape, if you become fixed in the rejection of God’s will and the choice of your own.
What else could God do with you? Where else could He place you in His universe? There is no other place but heaven, and heaven also is first a character, for only thus can it be a place where one can be eternally happy. Heaven must first get into us, before we could ever experience anything but intolerable suffering in the place which is heaven It would be the torments of hell aggravated beyond all power to imagine, to be compelled to associate with the myriads whose perfect joy and eternal delight will be the doing of the will of God which you must forever hate. The awful fact is, there can be no place in the universe which could possibly be heaven to those who have within their breasts the character that makes hell what it is. The salvation of men is from God. The damnation of men is from themselves, and it is in spite of all He can do to save them from it (Isaiah 5:4-6); for when their characters become finally fixed in having their own way, God Himself cannot change them. This is sin, and these are its inescapable results. What shall God do with it? By its very nature sin can never tolerate the will either of God or of those who love and do it, and so God, because He is love, cannot tolerate sin!
It is in the very nature of things, therefore, that He should express His intolerance of sin with such unmistakable meaning and clearness, that no moral being will ever have the slightest possible excuse for opposing His will. Indeed, He must do so, if His love for the sinless is to remain active on their behalf. This brings our thinking to the next phase of the problem of justice.
2. The Enforcement of Justice
Since it is the nature of God’s love for the sinless to maintain the enforcement of His loving will on their behalf, this can be done only by perpetual conquest over the will of sinful man, as that which sets His will aside, for only thus can there be conquest over sin. In the first place, therefore, we must understand the principles on which justice must be enforced.
God must take some attitude toward sin. The enforcement of justice demands this, for in the nature of things He cannot escape some attitude, carried through to its logical end by the necessary action. Even if He ignored sin, that would be an attitude. So what does reason lead us to expect that His attitude would be? What action will maintain the conquest of sin?
There are but four ultimate attitudes toward sin that are conceivable: either that of ignorance, or of indifference, or of consent, or of condemnation. God’s attitude must therefore be one of these four. Can God be ignorant of the presence of sin in His universe? That is impossible for an omniscient God, for otherwise He would be incompetent to preside over His own government, and the enforcement of His will over sin would therefore be impossible. So that attitude is out, and three are left.
Again, can God be indifferent to sin? If so, He would be indifferent to the welfare of those who depend on Him to maintain it for them, and so would be unfit to administer His government. That attitude is therefore out.
Once more, can God consent to sin? If He could, and should, He would then become partaker with the sinner in the unspeakable crime of destroying the welfare of dependent beings. His character of holiness would then be gone, and His government with it, and the universe would become an eternal moral wreck. So that is impossible.
There is nothing left, therefore, but the attitude of condemnation. God must condemn sin! That necessity is lifted straight up from the nature of things. Reason demands it, for no rational being can suggest any other conceivable attitude. Can you suggest one?
If you cannot, and if we are compelled to admit that there is nothing God can do with sin but to condemn it, then in what way will He condemn sin?
It is axiomatic that there are but two ways in which sin can be condemned. Either by precept, before it occurs—“Thou shalt,” and “Thou shalt not” (Exodus 20:3-17); or by penalty, after it occurs—“The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezekiel 18:4). And if the precept fails, as it has failed with every one who has ever sinned—and that takes in the race of Adam (Romans 3:23), there is nothing but penalty left! Can any rational being get away from that conclusion? Can you? Is there any other conceivable thing that can be done with sin?
You may be saying, Yes; you have left out one thing God can do with sin. He can forgive it. But can He? Think a minute. And first note that we are not talking about God’s attitude toward the sinner, but toward sin. We are not discussing, at least, not just yet, what God may find a way to do for the sinner, but what He is compelled to do with sin. Note that carefully, and then we can think clearly.