What Are You Going To Hell For?

Normally a good apologetics case for the truth of the Bible would be built upon a logical foundation.  One might start with the question “Is there a God?” and build from there.  Given the premise that there is a God, one might ask the question “Which god is the God?” or they might ask “Who is God?”  Once a particular god has been settled upon one might ask the questions “What is the personality of God?” or “What is the nature of God?“.  We might progress to the point of asking the question “Do I owe anything to God?” or “Does God expect anything from me?”  And finally we might ask the question “Are there any consequences to not meeting God’s expectations?”

I haven’t quite built that case over the past couple of years but I need to jump to the end game here.  Hopefully you will see why in a minute.  I would like to consider the question “Are there any consequences to not meeting God’s expectations?” and allow me to express my belief that there are.

The other day a group of us were sitting around discussing this story about an 18 year old woman who wants to marry her biological father (this story garnered overseas attention here).  This prompted one of the members of the group to make the, rather emphatic, statement “Don’t they know they will go to Hell for that!?!”

This is always an interesting statement to me because people (all of us here on this earth) tend to establish different levels of criteria for what will get us into Hell and what won’t.  I would like to say a whole lot more about Hell later on.  I believe it is a place.  A very real place.  But for the sake of time in this particular post, lets just agree that Hell (whatever your definition of Hell is – you will note that I have intentionally not provided any links to a definition or description of Hell, this is because I wish to revisit this topic in the future) is the consequence to not meeting God’s expectation.  So if we may agree, for the time being, that Hell is the consequence to not meeting God’s expectations, and it is obvious that we all establish different levels of criteria for what will cause us to end up in Hell, then the obvious question that arises is do we really understand what God’s expectations are?

In the particular case of the referenced story, some of the group either held a preconceived belief, or else had decided that their own threshold level for going to Hell was incest (this definition is a little broad.  I’m fairly certain the level of impact meant by the statement was sexual intercourse between immediate biological family members).  The implication of the statement is “Hey!  If you engage in this activity you ARE GOING TO HELL!!!” as opposed to some lesser (or perceived to be less offensive) activity.

If we follow this logic we are left to conclude that if one engages in incest, they are destined to go to Hell.  But is that really the case?  I don’t care what your Life foundations are, if you are an Evolutionist or a Creationist, we are all faced with the fact that at some point in the distant past of human existence, we all gained our bloodlines from a single set of parents.  Actually, if you are a Christian, you should believe this happened twice in human history because you should believe that the great flood wiped out all humans except for Noah and his immediate family.  And from both the initial creation, and the flood, all human existence grew from a very limited set of parents.  Hence, incest, on a fairly large scale.

The question then becomes, if incest is the criteria for failing to meet God’s expectations and thus ending up in Hell, what about all of those people in the beginning?  It would be a very cruel God to establish one set of rules for one person and a completely different set for another person.  So what are we to believe here?  Did incest used to be OK and pass God’s “stay out of Hell” test and now incest is not OK and actually fails God’s “stay out of Hell” test?  And is that the only criteria?  Because we, as human’s, want to believe that incest will send us to Hell, but a small lie, while not the right thing to do, is not quite enough to send us to Hell.

Now please don’t get me wrong here.  I am definitely not advocating, nor making a case for incest.  It was only the topic of conversation.  I could use any heinous sin such as murder to make the case.  The fact is, there is a line drawn in the sand with the belief being that when that line is crossed, you have failed God’s expectations and thus are destined to face the consequences of Hell.

I could make the same arguments about any SIN you want to put before the group for conversation.  There are examples of those that have committed great sin and yet God himself has brought to light their redemption.  Moses committed murder.  He killed a man in a fit of anger and rage.  And yet God himself buried Moses when he died, and when Jesus stood on the mount of transfiguration the disciples looked and recognized him (Matthew 17:1-4).  So here we have a murderer, and Jesus is standing with him on the mount.  That is quite a paradox.

Rather than focus on what we can, or cannot do to avoid Hell, it might be better to focus on exactly what God’s expectations are with-respect-to our response to him and try and determine if there is a level of expectation that avoids Hell.

One thing I can absolutely guarantee you of is that we all have met the threshold of SIN to deserve Hell (Romans 3:22-24).  No, I’ve never engaged in incest nor physically murdered anyone, but even that small lie, that moment of ill will toward another, those times when I’ve rebelled against God, those are more than enough to seal my place in Hell.  And you and I are in the exact same boat.  We are ALL headed for Hell from the day we are born.

So what then is the answer?  It is actually found in Romans 3:22, the beginning of the point where Paul tells us we’ve all sinned and are deserving of Hell.  The answer to the righteousness of God (meeting his expectations) is through Jesus Christ and is upon those that believe.

Jesus Christ himself told Nicodemus that those who believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

It is what we do with the person of Jesus Christ that determines whether or not we meet God’s expectations and avoid Hell.  Not who we lie to or whom we lie with.  We can live our lives by all the guidelines we can possibly establish, but if we miss the person of Jesus Christ, that he is the Son of God, God in the Flesh, and that he died on the Cross paying the penalty for our sins, that he and he alone is our answer to meeting the expectations of God and thus avoiding Hell, that our belief and our faith must be in and through him, then we have missed the mark.

So what are you going to Hell for?  Because if you feel safe having never committed murder or engaged in incest, you’ve missed the mark.  The one thing in life that will determine whether or not you meet God’s expectations and avoid Hell, is what you do with the person of Jesus Christ.