Hell: Isn't the God of Christianity an angry Judge? – Timothy Keller [Sermon]

the reading for today is taken from the Book of Luke chapter 16 verses 19 through 31 there was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day at his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table even the dogs came and licked his sores the time came when the beggar died and angels carried him to Abraham's side the rich man also died and was buried in Hell where he was in torment he looked up and

saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side so he called to him father Abraham have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire but Abraham replied son remember that in your lifetime you received your good things while Lazarus received bad things but now he is comforted here and you are in agony and besides all this between us and you a great chasm has been fixed so that those who want to go from here to you cannot

nor can anyone cross over from there to us he answered then I beg you father send Lazarus to my father's house for I have five brothers let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment Abraham replied they have Moses and the prophets let them listen to them no father Abraham he said but if if someone from the dead goes to them they will repent he said to him if they do not listen to Moses and the prophets they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead

this is the word of the Lord every week we're taking one of the things that in our culture and especially in New York City troubles people the most about Christianity each week we're choosing one of the things that troubles people the most about Christianity and looking at it and this week we're looking at the Christian teaching that God is a judge and a judge who consigns people to hell and there are a number of forms we'll look at a couple of them different forms and concerns about that teaching but basically I think the the understandable

objection goes like this how the person says can you possibly reconcile the concept of judgment in hell with the idea of a loving God judgment hell loving God back to still go together what do we say about that I'll tell you one of the things that I have said over the years because I'm a minister so people ask me what do you believe about Hell and one of the things I say is well one thing I believe is that probably the the biblical imagery of Hellfire probably that's metaphorical and the people go but then I

always say it's metaphorical for something probably infinitely worse than fire they go huh I'd like to argue that the Christian understanding of Hell is crucial that that's something that is infinitely worse than fire that something is crucial for understanding your own heart for living at peace in the world and for knowing the love of God understanding what the Bible says about how is crucial for understanding your own heart for living in peace in the world and for knowing the love of God I know those three things are very counterintuitive each one gets more counterintuitive than

the others so let's go and by the way the first point their first topic is the longest and the other two we'll build on it first of all understanding Hell is crucial to understand your own heart this parable has two characters a rich man and a poor man and one of the things that the commentators have told us for years is that one remarkable feature is that the this is the only parable in which a character the poor man has a proper name if you look at all of the rest of Jesus parables no one

has a proper name assigned to them except this poor man who's named Lazarus but if he won't if the one character would have a name surely if Jesus is going to use that approach the other character should have a name but he doesn't there's a name character and a nameless character and the contrast is deliberate or what does it mean in Israel at that time the rich man almost could not have possibly been an atheist or pagan the rich man would have believed in the God of the Bible he would have prayed to the God

of the Bible he would have obeyed the laws of the God of the Bible but he's in hell without a name why verse 25 Abraham said remember that in your lifetime you had your good things you already had them your highest your bed things the things that you built your life on you had them see philosophers for many years have talked about what they call the Summum bonum the highest good of your life what is your highest good what is the thing you really live for what is the thing that you that that that is

your ultimate value what is what is that which gives meaning to your life what is it that gives you a sense of who you are whatever your best thing the highest thing the ultimate value is that's what gives you an identity this man now had his good things it's past tense status and wealth was the basis for identity and now that the status and wealth is gone there's no him left he was a rich man or nothing he's no identity he's gone it's nameless because when you take away everything like wealth and status he has

no identity and you said well what's the alternative if somebody takes away everything I mean hell's the place where everything's taken away right if somebody takes away everything what is the alternative søren kierkegaard the great danish philosopher wrote a book called sickness unto death pretty much the only book I've read of his that I can understand actually but I really have understood it in that book he wrestles with the definition of sin and he defines sin as building your identity on anything but God it's in the book he wrestles with a good definition and he

knows the traditional definition of sin is breaking God's law and of course he agrees that breaking God's law is wrong as a sin but he wonders whether that's a sufficient definition and the answer the reason is Pharisees he says here's Pharisees they're they're following all the law fastidiously and yet they're lost why when the Pharisee is we talked about this last week a little when the Pharisees serve as their own Savior and Lord because they're seeking to earn their own salvation they're trying to put God in the position where because they're so good God has

to bless them and he has to answer their prayers and he has to give them a good life and he has to take them to heaven when Pharisees by obeying the law do that earning their own salvation they're actually building their identity not on God but on their moral performance they're getting their pride they're getting yourself worth out of their morality and their religiosity and it's destroying their character on the inside they're filled with pride and self-righteousness and ravening and rigidity outside they're wreaking havoc why because the the best definition of sin and I think

he's absolutely right here is building your identity on anything besides God good things turning them into ultimate things now Kierkegaard I think is being radically biblical especially he's following Romans six which we're going to look at later in the fall and what Kierkegaard is saying is this if you take a good thing and make it an ultimate thing if you look at anything in this life and say if I have that then I have importance and value if I have that but if I don't have that that I'm nothing if you look at money career

your talents your looks if you look at a relationship if you look at your parents if you look at your children if you look at power approval comfort control if you look at any of these things and make them more fundamental to your significance and security than the love and knowledge of God then though you may believe in God of the Bible you may pray to the God of the Bible you may be the laws of the God of the Bible but your faith the justification of your life the roots of your identity what you

really worship in other words is something else and that starts in your heart a spiritual cosmic fire that's what the metaphor for fire is about you say what are you talking about it starts a fire all right we know a lot about the devastation of addiction we know about the inward and outward devastation that addiction wreaks and it consists of things like this first of all there's the disintegration that happens in addiction because as addiction proceeds you need more and more the addictive substance to get less and less of the kick of the high of

the satisfaction so you need more and more of the substance and you do everything to get it to get less and less and less of the of the of the satisfaction and that leads to disintegration and another part of addiction is isolation you have to lie you have to you have to you have to defend yourself and of course you are always blaming everyone else and you're always blaming everything else for the problems and and you say nobody understands me and everybody's against me and of course that's all part of denial there's disintegration there's isolation

there's denial an inability to increasingly to see what's really happening getting more and more and more out of touch with reality oh yes you know in fact everybody probably in this room says I know of course I know firsthand or secondhand at the most third hand the devastation of those poor people who get addicted to substances ah but wait what if the Iron Giant is right now since most of you look like you're older than ten years old you may not have seen the movie The Iron Giant but I would suggest you watch it because

it's the maybe the best animated movie I've ever seen I love the Iron Giant and when if you read if you watch The Iron Giant there's one place where the Iron Giant says Souls don't die souls can't die and of course if he's right and that's what the Bible says is that the soul after death goes on forever your personal consciousness goes on forever if the Iron Giant is right and Kierkegaard's right - that is that every single person religious or irreligious moral or immoral is addicted as it were grounding your very identity taking your

very self from something besides God that can never give you the satisfaction that you hope it will give you if we're addicted all of us addicted in the in the ultimate sense and our souls go on forever what does that mean CS Lewis puts the two together and says this he says Christianity asserts that we are going to go on forever and that must either be true or false now there are a good many things which would not be worth bothering about if I were going to live only 80 years or so but which I

had better bother about if I'm going to go on living forever perhaps my bad temper or my jealousy are getting worse so gradually that the increase in my lifetime will not be very noticeable but it might be absolute hell in a million years in fact if Christianity is true hell is the precisely correct technical term for it hell begins with a grumbling mood always complaining always blaming others but you are still distinct from it you may even criticize it in yourself and wish you could stop it but there may come a day when you can

no longer do so then there will be no you left to criticize or even to enjoy the mood but just the grumble itself going on and on forever like a machine so it's not a question of whether God sends us quote-unquote to hell in every one of us there is something growing up which will be hell unless it is nipped in the bud fire you watch a log in the fire it's falling apart it's one thing to love a career but if you build your identity on a career and something goes wrong with it something's

going wrong in your career you're not just wounded in hurt which you should be you're devastated you're worthless if you feel worthless you want to throw yourself off a bridge disintegration it's it's okay to love somebody and to order just to want to be loved but if you build your entire identity on that and there's a problem in your relational life you won't just be hurt and wounded ever it like everyone like you should be but you'll be devastated you'll feel worthless you want to throw yourself off a bridge your good things and slave you

they're starting to disintegrate you they're starting to isolate you so that when something gets in the way of them instead of just being afraid you're paralyzed instead of just being angry you're implacably bitter instead of being despondent you endlessly hate yourself for ever and ever this is the fire do you not see it in yourself do you not see where it's going and most of all denial the denial no CS Lewis is constantly saying whenever he depicts hell that the doors of hell are locked from the inside that's the whole idea behind hell because you

more and more you would say I would never get a a say well this isn't very good people in the middle of addictions feel like that this isn't very good but I can't imagine being somewhere else and everybody else nobody understands it's not as bad as you say and I can really handle it that's hell and that's hell it's hell and it's hell if that's the case and I think it is we have confirmation right here in this text look at the insanity look at the out of touch with reality that characterizes people in Hell

commentators have noted for a long time that the rich man his it is astonishingly blind and in denial and filled with blame-shifting so for example notice that even though here's Lazarus up in heaven look at here he is he's in hell he's still ordering Lazarus around he still wants Lazarus to come and cool his tongue he still expects him to be a servant and notice something else he does not ask they get out of hell he just tries to get Lazarus in doesn't ask to get out and he strongly insinuates that God didn't give him

enough information you know now go go to my five brothers and give them the information what's that what hint hint I didn't get enough information nobody understands me I shouldn't really be here and besides that it's not so bad I really don't want to be up there with all that you know you know all that humbug up there and you know whatever you're doing up there but would you please send somebody down here to give me a little bit of break summary hell is just a freely chosen identity based on something else besides God going

on forever hell is just your freely chosen identity based on something else besides God going on forever disintegrating disintegrating disintegrating refusing to admit what it is thing and that's the reason why the idea that you might have in your mind that people give you in your mind that God is a God who sort of throws people into hell and he sort of throws them into this you know into this pit and they're climbing up the side saying please no and let me out and God saying no it's too late now it's a it's hell for

you CS Lewis puts it like this he says in the long run the answer to those who object to the doctrine of hell is itself a question what are you asking God to do to wipe out past sins and it all costs give them a fresh start he did on Calvary to forgive them but they don't ask for forgiveness to leave them alone that's what hell is there are only two kinds of people in the end those who say to God thy will be done and those to whom God says in the end thou will

be done all that are in hell choose it without that self choice it wouldn't be hell let me also say just in you know as a kind of application at this point told you was the longest one that uh understanding the nature of Hell has been incredibly important to me personally seeing myself and you by the way as spiritual addicts apart from the innervating grace of God all addicts is crucial dat knowing how to deal with what's going on in your life you have to see the seriousness of it you have to see the seriousness

I mean what you really do as a Christian most of your life is you watch the fires start to come up and then you that's basically it you say I I've got to deal with that and you can deal with the gospel you deal with it with grace but it's constantly coming back up again but it's awfully helpful to know what that is what that's made of what will extinguish it who are you really have you got a core identity a name based in what God has done for you in Jesus what God thinks of

you and Jesus based in being a child of the king based in the mission of the getting to the new heavens and new earth have you got a fundamental core identity that's there no matter what the circumstances no matter what happens no matter what happens you know who you are here's the stability have you got that or are you just a businessman are you just a businesswoman are you just an artist are you just a mother are you just a father are you willing to look as deep into yourself as this doctrine is calling you

to look so without the doctrine of hell you can't really understand I don't think your own heart secondly without the doctrine of hell I don't think you can really live at peace in this world or I should put another way to say the doctrine of Hell is a great way to do it you say what yes now I'm going to be real brief about this particular one because if you were here in the end of August we actually talked about it and we were looking at mark chapter thirteen this very thing in the second coming

of Christ and yet I can't not treat it in this under this heading there are many people who really get afraid that if you believe in a God of judgment and in the doctrine of hell it means you will disdain classes of people and you will oppress them so Wendy kaminer was writing an article last year in the nation and she had just had an interview with Rick Warren who wrote The Purpose Driven Life book and Wendy came on her liked him personally but still said this about his beliefs she said that his faith quote

is inherently divisive at the end of the day non-christians however devout are lost what are the prospects of equal citizenship for those of us damned by our refusal to be born again what are the prospects of equal citizenship for those of us damned by unwillingness to be born again and so what she's saying is you can't treat us as equal citizens if you think we're lost and been judged and we're damned you're going to you're going to oppress us you're going to disdain us you're going to feel this alright to marginalize us we'll see now

this objection again I could say it's understandable but it certainly does not understand what the Bible says about Hell at all because as we've seen right here it's not something imposed by God in violence is it in fact I find it intriguing to me verse 25 and other commentators have too that when Abraham looks down from heaven into hell and speak to this stupid rich man that's absolutely out of touch with reality still you know you know in hell Richmond what does he call him does he say you evil sinner what does he say son

teknon the commentators say there's there's pathos here there's sadness here there's there's a sense of tragedy here Jesus Abraham God anyone who believes the Bible does not look at people who are on their way to that fire yeah it's very impossible to know who exactly is when you especially if you understand how enough to see it in yourself and how we going to say exactly who's going to get there who's not but the point is even if you did know there would be no sense in which you would disdain them not if you understand this

but besides that even more so this objection does not understand what Miroslav Volf said in that fascinating chapter in his book exclusion and embrace which I quote every year so did not because it's so important Miroslav Volf says as a Croatian he was he had first-hand experience and and an acquaintance with a terrible violence in the Balkans and there he saw people going on for years and years and years locked into a cycle of vengeance and retaliation you did this to us we're going to do this to you you did this to us we're going

to do this to you but he says in his book that the cycle of retaliation is not fueled by a belief in a God of judgment but it's fueled by a lack of belief in a God of judgment and he says and this is remarkable he says if God were not angry at injustice that God would not be worthy of worship the only means of prohibiting all recourse to violence by ourselves is to insist that judgment is legitimate only when it comes from God my thesis that the practice of non-violence requires a belief in divine

vengeance will be unpopular with many but it takes the quiet of a suburban home to believe that human non-violence results from a belief in God's refusal to judge in a land soaked in the blood of the innocent it will invariably die with other pleasant captivity zuv the liberal mind now here's what he's saying is this if you've talked to some people who have seen their homes burned and seen their family members killed and raped how are you going to keep them from picking up the sword and being sucked into the cycle of violence and retaliation

what are you gonna say are you going to say well you know violence doesn't solve anything not only will such moralizing not touch their hearts but it doesn't it shows no concern for justice and anybody who's been wronged like that says justice has to be done valve says the only resource he knows powerful enough to both pacify the human hearts desire for justice and at the same time keep us from getting sucked into that cycle of blood and vengeance is to say there is a God and He will put everything right everything right and both

says if you don't think if you think not believing in God or not believing in a God of judgment is going to keep people from being sucked into the cycle of violence you're wrong if you don't believe there is somebody who's going to make everything right you will pick up the sword and you will get sucked in and therefore he says if you don't believe that the doctrine of God's judgment if you don't believe that it that is not a powerful resource for living at peace on earth you've had a sheltered life you have not

experienced this belief in a God of judgment is crucial he says about the only thing only resource strong enough to help me he was saying as a Croatian live in peace on earth so how's necessary to understand your heart hell's necessary for living in peace on earth and last of all the doctrine of hell is necessary for knowing the love of God say what wait a minute somebody says now this is the worst one of all you're the whole idea of a God of judgment in hell seems opposed to the idea of a God of

love it's not you're wrong with all due respects look at the end of this passage what is the rich man asked of Abraham for his brothers his five brothers he says I want a miracle send Lazarus back now of course if Lazarus actually does you know they know Lazarus is dead if Lazarus suddenly comes up out of the ground you know in front of the five brothers that's a miracle it's a naked sick tacular miracle raise somebody raised on the dead can you imagine Lazarus rises up in the oh my gosh it's Lazarus there is

a hell what are you going to say no of course they're going to say yes oh my gosh I better really live a good life I don't want to go to hell Abraham says that will never work he says they won't be convinced and and that word by the way means more than rationality of course they'll be convinced in the sense of oh my gosh I better be I didn't realize was a hell here's a letter from our brother oh my gosh he says look out he's going to mean Abraham is saying fear fear of

Hell fear of damnation will never change the fundamental structures of your heart it won't work and ironically fear of Hell will never keep you out of it it won't put out the fire well what is the fire what's wrong with you and me what's wrong with us what's wrong with the world self-centeredness self-absorption me me me me rather than you me over you me on top of you me instead of you that's what's wrong and when you scare people when people say I better be good because of fear of hell I got to be good

because of fear of damnation why are they being good are they're being good for goodness sake I've been good for God's sake just to please them they're being good for their sake it's just more selfishness its moral selfishness but it's selfishness and not only that are they doing it for God's sake just to please him just to delight him no they're using God they saying well if I live a really good enough life thank God we'll have to give me the things that I'm basing my identity on give me success give me a family give

me a man or woman of my dreams take me to heaven all that sort of thing in other words God is still the means to an end to get the things you're really building your identity on and so just to suddenly get really moral and go to church and read your Bible and do all these good things out of fear of Hell you're just turning up the flames you're kind of rearranging the selfishness and the pride and the evil of your heart inside your moral life your jury-rigging the evil of your heart to make you

a moral person you're not doing a thing about it what will change the fundamental structures of the heart love radical love radical unconditional love is the only thing that will take our mistrustful in denial conniving little hearts and shock them in the whole new way of living and being loved well we're we going to get that kind of love that changes our heart well Jesus actually tells us and it indirectly what they say is what what this guy says is if I just had a person raised from the dead a naked miracle if we've sent

that to those guys then everything would be okay and Abraham says no but you see that's almost supposed to make you think of something what is that didn't Jesus rise from the dead didn't Jesus rose from the dead sure he did isn't Jesus rising from the dead enough no if Jesus suddenly just blows out the top of the mountain and shows up that would just create fear that would just create fears oh my gosh he must be the Lord what do I have to do where do I have to sign see how do I avoid

hell Jesus says no the key is you have to know why and you know where you find that Moses and the prophets you have to fight you have to know why I died and rose and what is it what does it say in Moses and the prophets see that's the only place you're going to find that love it's understanding why and the answer is it was God's will to crush him so we looked upon him and were appalled he was disfigured beyond human appearance and his form was marred beyond human likeness for the Lord made

him a guilt offering but the results of his suffering he will see and be satisfied you do not know how much Jesus loves you unless you know how much he suffered what did he suffer on the cross David Martyn lloyd-jones little sermon illustration I read years ago I forget where but it's really helped me for years he said imagine that a friend of mine comes to see me and says hey I was at your house the other day and a bill came due and you weren't there so I paid it and a dr. David Marlow

John says well he says how should I respond and the answer is I have no idea how to respond to I know how big that bill was was it just a postage do you know and he paid another 20 cents or something like that he would say well thank you but what if the IRS finally found you what if was those ten years of back taxes you know what if it was an enormous debt see Lloyd John says until I know how much he paid I don't know whether to shake his hand or fall down

on the ground and kiss his feet what did Jesus Christ actually experience on the cross unless you believe in hell you will never know how much he loved you you will never know how much he values you your heart will never know unless you believe in hell he said why why did Jesus Christ speak more about Hell than anybody else in the Bible put to all the everybody else in the Bible put together did not speak about how as much as Jesus why because on the cross he took it the fire fell down into his

heart the Apostles Creed said he descended into hell you say what do you mean need to send it into hell when he said father why have you forsaken me my God my God why has thou forsaken me to lose the love of a friend hurts to lose the love of a spouse hurts more the deeper and greater the relationship the more devastating and agonizing the loss of love and I know this is beyond finding out but on the cross when Jesus Christ lost when the son lost the eternal love of the Father he experienced an

agony he experienced a disintegration he experienced an isolation infinitely greater than you and I would experience in an eternity in hell he took the isolation and the disintegration we deserve he took it on himself why he loves you and unless you see that he didn't just experience physical pain on the cross or even if some kind of emotional pain on the cross unless you understand unless you believe in Hell you'll never know how much he loved you you'll never know how much he cares never ironically people by getting rid of the idea of judgment on

he'll try to make God more loving and they make him less and if somebody says to me oh I believe in God of love I don't believe in hell I don't believe in judgment or anything like that I always say what did it cost your God to love you and they say well I don't know if it cost him anything he just loves everybody if God just loves everybody and it didn't cost him at all I can I can honor a God like that I can I can be glad for a God like that I

can I'm sure it affects me in some ways but if I want to be transformed if I want to sense his wild love around me if I want wonder love and praise if I want boldness and humility if I want transformation if I want to be able to sing love so amazing so divine demands my soul my life my all I got to believe in hell the biblical doctrine of hell if you don't really understand it only hear about it in pieces you could twist it to create a pretext for cruelty but to really read

it to really understand how all of the plotlines of the Bible regarding justice come together on Jesus Christ who was the judge of the earth who came not to bring judgment but the bare judgment and to go to hell for his enemies if you understand that if you grasp that it's going to equip you to live at peace with other people was God who did this for you and with yourself let's pray I thank you father for granting this deep insight and that is that through Moses and the prophets if we can understand why Jesus

Christ died and rose and how on the cross he descended into hell and he received that fire that we see beginning in us but he received that fire he received the penalty due to us so that by your grace you can embrace us and pardon us and forgive us and put your spirit in us and put that fire out by making yourself through your holy spear at the center of our lives well that means we're lost in wonder love and praise and we pray that that praise and that wonder and that love would begin today

as we give ourselves to you maybe for the first time or flow and wax and grow as we think about these things through the power of your spirit we asked you would apply this to our lives we ask it in Jesus name Amen for more of this series and other resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church please visit