Going to Hell?

Over at the excellent Stand to Reason blog, Alan Shlemon asks and answers the question, "Are Homosexuals Going to Hell?" His answer? "Why, yes! Why do you ask?" Okay, almost. The answer is we're all going to hell. All sin deserves hell. Homosexuals don't have a corner on the sin market. It's a good entry and I recommend you read it, but it made me think down a different line.

In normal human thinking today, our default position is "Humans are basically good." By normal human standards, everyone is going to heaven unless, of course, they do something really bad. Now, we Christians know better ... or we should. We know that the Bible teaches unequivocally "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." We know that "the wages of sin is death." We know that "No man comes to the Father but by Me" (Christ speaking, of course). It wasn't some narrow-minded Bible-belt pastor who said this, but our Lord and Savior: "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matt 7:13). How many people are destined for heaven? "Few", according to Jesus.

We catch a lot of flak when we say people are going to hell. It's rude, unkind, intolerant. We stand at the "Bridge Out" sign and point and we're mean-spirited, hateful, and bigoted. In fact, we struggle with the idea. "Why do so many people go to hell?" Indeed, it cannot be true that God plans for anyone to end up there, right? Show me a Christian who affirms that God plans for people to go to hell, and I'll show you a rare breed indeed. So we're bad for saying it and God is sad (or bad?) for allowing it and it's all a terrible mistake, but it appears that it's true that few go to heaven and many go to hell.

I'd like to point out, however, that our evaluation is faulty. First, God doesn't damn anyone arbitrarily. People don't spend eternity without God by accident. They earn it. They work hard for it. C.S. Lewis suggested that people in hell, in a sense, triumphed over God. Beyond that, I think we're asking the wrong question. As Mr. Shlemon pointed out, the question is not "Do homosexuals go to hell?" All sinners are headed for hell. And we get that. But what we very often miss is the reverse. Not "Why are people going to hell?", but "Why would anyone not go to hell?" You see, we've all earned hell. We've all shaken our fists in the face of God and declared, "I will be like the Most High." We've all joined the Revolution against the Creator. We've all earned the eternal death penalty. So the question isn't "Why would God send homosexuals to hell?" or anything so trite. The question is "Why would God save one?"

"The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." That's the evaluation of Christ. We shouldn't presume otherwise. When Paul spoke of the concept he said, "What if God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of His glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory" (Rom 9:22-23). The question is not "Why do so many go to hell?" The really astounding question is "Why would God save anyone?" It is in that question that we see God's mercy magnified.