Jesus warns us about hell precisely so we do not have to experience it! He became accountable for us as he engaged a life of sinless righteousness and love. At the end of his ministry, of course, his disciples did fail him. They betrayed, denied, and deserted their Lord. But Jesus took on the responsibility for their (and indeed our) failures. Jesus entered the fiery judgment for his people. On the cross, he endured the hell of God-forsakenness. 

I don’t want to go to hell. In some part of me, I don’t want there to be a hell. I became a Christian, at least in part, to escape the prospect of hell. And at times, I’ve intensely studied Christian theology, at least in part, to find a scriptural case for nobody staying in hell.
On the personal level, I’ve found assurance that, united to Jesus, my future is secure with him. But I cannot, with theological integrity, scrub out hell from the Bible. Nor can I ignore the witness of the church through the centuries that everlasting separation from the triune God remains a fearful possibility. My heart may at times want to be a universalist, but the word will not let me.
It’s vital that we do not avoid considering the reality of damnation. So, I’d like to make three observations about hell from Scripture that lead to one astounding hope.
Beyond the Dead
Hell is a place yet to be. As I read Scripture, prior to the resurrection of Jesus, when someone died, his spirit separated from the body and entered a shadowy nonphysical realm. Sheol (in Hebrew) and Hades (in Greek) express this state, or place, of the dead. It was a lonely, twilight kind of existence. It was devoid of experiencing the personal presence of the Lord in prayer or worship (Psalm 6:5). Both the evil and the faithful went there, though (it seems) to different parts. In the unfolding revelation of Scripture, however, we come to see Sheol/Hades as but an intermediate state for the human spirit.
With the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, we learn that Sheol/Hades is not a permanent state, either for believers or unbelievers. For those united to Christ, our spirits get to go directly into God’s presence (Philippians 1:23). For those not united to Christ, some traditions, following Hebrews 9:27, believe that these persons enter judgment immediately. To my reading, Scripture doesn’t give us enough information to say definitively what happens to the spirits of those who die without Christ. Sheol/Hades as an intermediate state may still be a possibility. What is abundantly clear, however, is that for every human spirit there is more to come.
With the return of Jesus at judgment day, all the dead will be raised (1 Thessalonians 4:16). As Paul writes, “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. . . . The dead will be raised imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:51–52). Human beings don’t go out of existence. Our spirits live after death. Then, “at the last trumpet” (1 Corinthians 15:52), we will be raised into spiritual bodies.
This rising, however, is not as hopeful as it first sounds. We all will give an account. Paul writes, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Jesus chillingly clarifies, “An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28–29).
What follows for those judged and found wanting is Gehenna, properly translated as “hell.” Gehenna is the same word in both Hebrew and Greek, designating the fiery place of everlasting punishment. Gehenna is a variation on the Valley of Hinnom, a place outside Jerusalem where children had been sacrificed in idolatrous rites (Jeremiah 7:31; 32:35). It later became a garbage dump, and its fires smoldered continually. By Jesus’s time, the name of this notorious valley had become equated with punishment in the afterlife, a condition to occur after the intermediate state of Sheol and after the day of judgment. Gehenna is what we usually think of as hell.
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“Enable us, Lord, as husband and wife to shine like the sun and moon, and our children as stars, so gloriously and powerfully with the light of holiness, that our house may be your lesser heaven.”

It is one of the most important habits that any married couple can form. Unfortunately, it is also one of the most rare. For a husband and wife to live well together before the Lord, they must pray together. For a couple to honor God in their marriage, they must be as intimate spiritually as they are physically. At times it can be difficult to know what to pray or how to pray. This prayer by George Swinnock is a wonderful model of a prayer a couple can (and perhaps should) pray together.
Lord, who are the guide of all relationships, may our marriage befit those married to the Lord Christ. Like Abraham and Sarah, may we be famous for faith; like Isaac and Rebecca, may we live in dearest love; like Zachariah and Elizabeth, may our walk be blameless.
May the meditation of each other’s frailty spur us to greater fidelity. May you be our guide, and Scripture our compass. Whatever stony paths we walk on earth, may we enjoy a comforting sunshine from heaven. And since you have tied this knot between us, may we do nothing which might loosen it through angry thoughts or quarrelsome deeds.
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Comparison can only become an ally when we use it to compare ourselves to the right standard and if we do so for the right reason. It can only become an ally when we compare ourselves to Jesus out of a longing to be more like him. The way to grow in holiness is not to compare ourselves to other people, but to compare ourselves to the Savior.

Comparison comes as naturally to us as eating, breathing, laughing, weeping. From our youngest days we begin to compare ourselves to others and quickly find the old adage to be true: Comparison is the enemy of joy. Though we so readily compare ourselves with others, we discover that this fosters a deep unhappiness. What promises joy actually delivers misery.
The reason is that comparison is intrinsically competitive, so that we don’t really want to be merely pretty, but prettier than the other person; we don’t really want to be merely wealthy, but wealthier than he is; we don’t really want to be merely successful, but more successful than the other person. No follower count is high enough until it is higher than hers, no church big enough until it is bigger than his. If we fail to get the things our hearts desire we grow in envy, but if we do get them we grow in pride. Our comparison is never rewarded with contentment.
Even in our Christian lives we can be prone to comparison. We can judge ourselves righteous by comparing ourselves to others’ depravity, we can judge ourselves faithful by comparing ourselves to others’ sinfulness, we can judge ourselves committed by comparing ourselves to others’ apathy. We can become like the Pharisee Jesus introduced in a parable—the one who went to the temple to pray and said, “I thank you, God, that I am not like other men”—especially like that traitorous tax collector who stood nearby.
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