Are all non-Christians going to hell? What is hell? Hell is a unique location, and for most people, it is a horrible place where sinful people go, but is that what it really is? And, how can a loving God put us into a place, literally like hell? Let’s try to understand what the hell is, and why it is so bad, and then we can understand how we get there.
C. S. Lewis is one of the most spectacular writers of Christian understanding, and he really helps people to understand what’s going on in their own lives. If you look at Lewis’s book the “Problem of Pain”, he says “the doors of hell are actually locked from the inside”[1]. This means that people of hell don’t actually want anybody to help them, even if they’re all annihilating each other. Some think that hell could be a good place to go, but there are not a lot of people who would agree with this, and therefore, we should consider this very carefully.
In one of my past lives, I was an executive in a few New York companies that dealt with money management. I was the director and a vice president of several high and very obvious companies on Wall Street. When I wanted something done, I asked my people to get it done. However, I saw the look in people’s eyes when I asked them to get something specifically done. Yes, they were my managers, and no, I didn’t have to push them. However, each of them knew what would happen to them, if they challenged me. When you do something for yourself, or for others, that you not sure you want to do yourself, this is a sin because having somebody else do your “dirty work” is wrong. Here, “the doors are locked from the inside” because we don’t want people to see what we’re doing, or why we’re doing it. We don’t really want anybody to see what gets done in the “dark”, because the “light” would hurt us. To tell the truth is not always easy, and sometimes the truth will hurt them, or maybe us. So, what is hell? It’s a place where we don’t want people to see what we’ve done. Hell is a place where our subordinates hurt themselves because our “envy” makes us hide what this means to others and our opinions are “better” than anybody else’s. Hell is a place of condemnation because we are always right and others are all wrong.
In the book “Mere Christianity”, Lewis has a helpful analogy of what hell really means. He says that there is only one right answer to an arithmetic problem, but there are some answers that are not as wrong as others. “2 + 2 can only equal 4. But 2 + 2 = 5 is closer than 2 + 2 = 25. Among the varied spiritual systems of mankind, the only absolutely wrong answer is to reject all answers or not to attempt an answer at all.”[2] This is the worst answer! We must have an answer to “what is hell”, and to “what is our salvation”. If we don’t have an answer to this, positively or negatively, then we don’t have any answer at all. With this in mind, God will be dismayed at our lack of awareness and our understanding of the world around us, and therefore, treat us as a “fool” that we have made ourselves into, and that is not good!
Why don’t most people want to think about hell? It’s not a nice place, and frankly, it’s really ugly. It’s ugly, because of what people do to others. Let’s look at an example: people in hell thrive on the sins that we know; they are prideful (they have no humility in them), they love greed (they have no generosity in them), they are lustful (we would think of self-restraint or self-denial, that they don’t have), they are full of anger (they have no patience at all), they are gluttons (they have no self-control or self-discipline in them), they are terribly envious (there is no help for others or gratitude in them) and they are full of laziness (there is no caring or meticulousness in them). Hell is where the mean, unyielding, and relentless find themselves. Hell is here, because we want it to be here, and we put ourselves into this place.
Let’s go back and look at what hell really means from this perspective of the Bible[3], and what it meant to Christ. Because Christ really believed that if we don’t understand this it will hurt us. If you look at Matthew chapter 6, verse 10, it says:
“May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
(Matthew 6: 10)
This prayer is called ‘the Lord’s prayer’, and it’s the prayer that Jesus gave to us. Here, in this prayer, Jesus is saying, it will be done in heaven as we also do it here on earth. This is God’s goodness here on earth. With this prayer visualized in our world, here on earth, justice is done, and we serve each other and help each other in all things. But most people don’t actually like this or agree with this, and most don’t believe that this is really important for us, and therefore, there must be a place where this isn’t true. There must be a place where we don’t do justice, we don’t care for each other, and we don’t care about heaven, that place is hell.
Here we have a prayer, that Jesus taught us, that gives us an insight to what heaven is. However, if we move in the other direction, we know that hell has its doors locked from the inside, which means that nobody really cares about the world around them, and they are so focused on what is happening to them, in their time, that greed is more important than a proper outcome within the real world. And, at the same time, they are so self-absorbed with their own problems, that they don’t care about the real world and what their actions mean to anybody else. This is hell! Hell can be on our doorstep today. If we consider that our thoughts are more important than anybody else’s, then we are in trouble of going down the path of hell. This is not the prayer that Jesus taught us. This is moving in the wrong direction. If we move in this direction for too long, we will start to live this way. This is not a good place to be.
Most people don’t want to talk about ugly places in their conversations, they want to win over people, and so, we don’t talk about hell. But that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad topic, although, it is an unpopular topic for most people. Most people do want to understand how to stay out of hell, and frankly, they want to make sure that they have at least “one foot” in a “good place”, and not “two in hell”. Hell scares the be-jeepers out of most people, they may not say it, but in the end, this is not a place anybody wants to go, and they want to stay away from this by all means.
Let’s go look at the Bible and figure out what we can tell about hell and understand what the Bible is telling us.
Here, within the Bible, it says:
12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.
(Revelation 20:12)
The author of the Book of Revelation is the Apostle John, he is the one who wrote the Gospel of John. Here, in the book of Revelation, John is talking about seeing the Dead that is standing in judgment: And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne. This is an awful lot of people standing before the throne. Think this through, how many people do you think have died on earth, and how many more will have died till the end of time? This is billions and billions of people. But John doesn’t say that they are ghosts, or that they are unclothed, or that they can’t understand the language. John is always precise in his writing to describe what he sees and, these people are standing, clothed, and understand the language that is spoken. They are all standing there waiting for God, or for Jesus. What is this place? This is the “judgment” that comes “before Heaven”. This is our justice; this justice is for each of us, so that we can explain what we did, and so God, or Jesus, will hear each of us and will talk about why we did what we did in life and what does this mean. This is the courts of the eternal life, before heaven.
“and books were opened”. What books? All of what we did, in our life, is written within the books of our judgment. You might think of this as a recording of who we are and what we did in our lives. It’s like a recording around our neck that can be played back at judgment. It is not context-free. No, we have all the context within it and we can tell others about what we felt and the fears we had. But this may not save us, and it could harm us, in the end. By using the “opened book”, there is no place for us to hide. If we lie in judgment, then God will know, and this may not be good or right. The “truth”, always telling the “truth”, is God’s way to help us to understand ourselves, and also to help others, as well.
“Another book was opened, which is the book of life.” What is the book of life? In the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the Book of Life is a book that has all of the names of people who God thinks are the ones who have earned their way to go to Heaven, and if your name is “blotted out” of the book, it means that you are not going to Heaven any time soon. But there is a judgment for each of us, and we can be forgiven. If we really want forgiveness, then we can have it, because this is the way of God. But, if you want forgiveness, then we will need to cower before what God and the angels bear. This may not be good for you. So, consider this.
“The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books.” Yes, we can “argue” and plead here. But this is our judgment, God’s judgment on us, not our judgment on someone else. Here, we stand alone, without any others by our side, and all by ourselves. Here, God will hear what we think and why. We are “heard here”, and yes, we can make a real difference in our lives. Here, within the judgment, we need to have an opinion, positively or negatively (2 + 2 is 4). If we don’t have an opinion, then we have missed steps, and we are unprepared. It is not just the non-Christians who have to go through this, it is for everyone. It doesn’t matter where anyone was born, they still need to go through with God’s judgment on them. This is God’s judgment; some will go to heaven and others won’t. So, ensure that you have an opinion, and let’s hope it’s right.
Jesus was very clear on what judgment really is. In Matthew chapter 10, Jesus is sending the disciples out on their own adventures. The disciples, now becoming apostles at Jesus’ request, are moving two by two in the world that has treated them with contempt. They are to give of themselves freely and to give themselves to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, but not to anyone else. Jesus is talking to all of the disciples/apostles, and He is talking about “judgment” to each of them saying:
11 Whatever town or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you leave. 12 As you enter the house, greet it. 13 If the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it, but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. 14 If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. 15 Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.
(Matthew 10: 11-15)
Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. Here, Jesus is telling his disciples, now apostles, that the people that they talk to will not have more “grace” in the day of judgment than the ones from the land of Sodom and Gomorrah.
What is different about Sodom and Gomorrah? Sodom and Gomorrah are two cities that are within the Canaanites region, from Gerar as far as Gaza and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim as far as Lasha. The Canaanites were unfriendly people, and the Bible paints a pretty grim picture of Canaanite practices. In the Canaanite culture, they worshiped demonic idols, they had taboo sexual acts that they did to each other, and they even sacrificed their children to the Canaanite gods. As I said, the Canaanites were a really unfriendly people. The city’s Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities that were next to each other and they reveled in all of the ridiculousness that exists in the Canaanite culture. If you can remember the sins we talked about earlier in this text, anger, lustful, prideful, and full of anger, were common within the cities. And this is why God destroyed both of these cities. If you’d like to read about this, it’s in Genesis chapter 19.
What Jesus is telling His apostles is that, for all the filth that was in Sodom and Gomorrah at that time, when it was full of corruption, is nothing compared to what will happen to the people in these towns if they don’t listen to the apostles. And, what does Jesus tell his apostles? On the day of judgment. So, Jesus is actually telling his apostles that on the day of judgment, these things will happen. Think about this! If this is then, at Jesus’ time when Sodom and Gomorrah are actually given grace for their answers, but what if they visited them now, what would it be like for us when we’re thousands of years past them? Are we living in a time where nobody is talking to us? Or, do we have someone who is talking to us and we don’t know it?
If you can move to Matthew chapter 12, verses 41-42, you will read that people of Nineveh, and the queen of the South will condemn this generation, because they did not have Jesus to understand or to listen to. And what is Jesus talking about, the “day” of judgment with this generation. The “day” of judgment will not be “a day”, as we know it (day and night), but it will be a time that we are all in judgment together, and as one people, the whole of one people.
It leaves us with the knowledge that we all know right from wrong and that we all have the free will to make our own choices. God does not send any of us to hell. We can choose to skip right down that path on our own accord. God stretches out loving arms to us and He wants us to stretch ours back to Him. But if we don’t stretch out our arms, then maybe we can’t enjoy life’s guarantees, and that may mean that our names may be “blotted out” of the Book of Life.
Does God speak to unbelievers? Of course, He does! The Bible tells us that God knows all things and that no creature is hidden from His sight. If we look at Hebrews chapter 4 verses 12 and 13, we see:
12 Indeed, the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joints from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 And before him no creature is hidden, but all are naked and laid bare to the eyes of the one to whom we must render an account.
(Hebrews 4:12-13)
If you read this, the Lord has the right to divides soul from spirit and He knows all of us, and He can understand and judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart, He can also understand us so that from our eyes of the one to whom we must render an account. If we render an account of our hearts, then we will be ready for judgment, and if not, then we have something to consider.
The problem is, if we go to hell, and by the way, we can put ourselves there, and God will try to help us, but if we say No to our actions, God will leave us behind. God doesn’t work in hell. If we are left behind, then we have other people we need to deal with and they are evil, or maybe, we cease to exist. Which means that after we have judgment and are found guilty, what happens to us? We don’t really know. We can see that God is good and that not everything in the Bible is nice, but we really don’t know what will happen to each of us. We do know the outcomes. You need to consider what your outcome needs to be. You need to understand who you are and where you want to go. If you want to go to heaven, then you need to consider what that means and how you can get there. But you do have a choice. There are many ways to go, but there are only two outcomes. It is up to you to choose.
[1] C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain, HarperOne, Reprint 2015
[2] C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, HarperOne, Reprint 2023
[3] In this document, we use the New Revised Standard Version – Updated Edition (NRSVUE) as our Bible.