In Search of Better Stories

The Most Encouraging Book on Hell Ever

Well, that was interesting. A comedian writes a book on the reality of hell, and he is not joking, but yet the book itself is full of jokes. Wait, what? Exactly.

So, what is going on here? People, and especially Christian people of late, don’t like the idea of hell – it’s too harsh, too off putting, too out of touch with reality, too unbelievable. Thor Ramsey quotes social critic and comedian Bill Hicks to capture the incredulity of an actual place called hell:

“Christianity is such an odd religion. The whole image is eternal suffering awaits anyone who questions God’s infinite love. Believe or die. Thank you for all those options.”

This skepticism of hell has not just dripped into the church, it has poured in like a flood. Notable Christian celebrity Rob Bell basically says the same thing in his book:

“God loves us. God offers us everlasting life by grace, freely through no merit on our part. Unless you do not respond the right way. Then God will torture you forever. In Hell. Huh?”

Thor Ramsey is not about to go along with this drifting tide of “envangellyfish” as he calls them. If hell becomes only a metaphor, or a temporary holding tank that eventually dissolves into heavenly bliss for all, or morphs into annihilationism, then all is lost. According to our funny-boned author, the entire Christian story becomes meaningless. It’s kind of a big deal, so Thor cracks jokes and quotes Bible verses and makes his case that a punishing eternal hell is very real, very terrible, and to be avoided at all costs – through faith in Jesus.

If Hell freezes over… the loss of eternal punishment as it is taught in the Bible will result in the shrinkage of God’s attributes and in the end, a smaller God. We will suffer the loss of the fear of God, the loss of a holy God, the loss of a just God, the loss of an extravagantly loving God, and the loss of God’s wisdom in the cross. We can’t afford to lose the attributes of God. Otherwise we have a meaningless gospel. But the greatest loss whenever Scripture is minimized is the loss of knowing the self-revealed God of this universe.” 

Does Thor have a point? I think so. Below are my observations:

    • Jesus’ death is evacuated of meaning if hell doesn’t exist: “It’s the difference between Jesus dying for you or just giving up His seat on the bus for you.” If there is no real danger, if our souls are not in peril of damnation, then what was Jesus thinking? If we are all going to end up in heaven anyway, or if some of us will just be snuffed out into non-existence, then the story doesn’t really make sense anymore. Jesus’ sacrifice is not something to put our ultimate hope in, instead we just kind of feel sorry for the guy.  Thor wants us to be convinced that if it wasn’t for Jesus, we’d be toast!
    • God hates sinners in addition to their sin — He has his Bible verses to back it up, and clearly it’s not a stretch to see that God does not send sinners to hell because He loves them, so I get it. Even still, it’s difficult for me to imagine a conversation with one of my not-yet-believing friends starting off with the line “Currently, God hates you.” But that’s not what Thor is suggesting – or is it? He does manage to say “This means that God can simultaneously seek a sinner’s best interests (Love) while opposing the sinner’s primary motivations in life (Hate) And I understand that, at least to a certain degree, earthly relationships have this dynamic as well.
    • The unpleasant thought of God’s wrath — God is justified in being upset with us, not in a freak out, fly off the handle way, but in a consistent, unmoving, non-reactionary opposition to all that stands against His holiness. After pointing out bunches of sins which reveal just how much we don’t measure up, he makes a very accurate statement “The problem is that we don’t really believe we deserve God’s wrath” And that is true – our culture teaches us that we are superheroes and victims at the same time. We get all the credit for the good, and readily have someone to blame for the bad. And so it seems to be going with our Theology.
    • The blame game for all eternity“In our refusal to love God and instead embrace sin, we never quite see sin as an infinite evil. We usually think of our sins as minor hijinks. Hitler deserves hell, but not us. It’s always the other guy. Those “evildoers” – they deserve hell. Not us ‘sinners’”. And this is the genius of C.S. Lewis’ master work The Great Divorce: through one unsettling story after another, he reveals how hell is inhabited by increasingly self-absorbed, utterly miserable people who are experts in blaming others for all eternity.

This book is blunt and rough, even with all the jokes. What’s Thor’s message in a nutshell? God is perfectly righteous – we are not. Hell is real. We need Jesus desperately. We must repent and follow Him. There are eternal consequences if we don’t.

Thor makes a blood-earnest call for Christian leaders to forsake the notions of a “Santa Claus” God who is always happy, always gushing with love and good gifts, regardless of what we believe or do. Santa Claus is not the God of the Bible. Thor wants to reawaken us to the God who is a consuming fire, who will not be a party to any wickedness, but who loves us so deeply that He was willing to sacrifice all for our salvation.

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