Why the threat of Hell or the promise of Heaven are unlikely to bear the fruit of salvation

We’ve all heard a “fire and brimstone” preacher at one time or another. Their message usually describes hell in the worst possible terms, with the aim of scaring people into heaven, which is described as paradise. Perhaps some people genuinely respond to such a message, one cannot tell. I have my doubts, however, about using heaven and hell alone as the basis of preaching the gospel of salvation.

The desire to go to a wonderful place, rather than a terrible one, when you die is first and foremost driven by a sense of self-preservation. The unbeliever wants to have a nice afterlife so he/she can enjoy things, preferably very similar things to what they enjoy on earth. So the fire and brimstone preacher is ultimately appealing to their selfishness, which is the exact opposite message of the gospel as preached by Jesus Christ – “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Matt. 16:24). I just cannot imagine one coming to Christ in an act of pure self-interest, and then staying with Him when you realise that He commands selflessness.

Besides the problem of motivations, there is an issue with how we describe what hell and heaven are actually like. There are very few passages in the Bible that deal with either of these, and they are usually quite thin on details. In His ministry on earth, the Lord Jesus often refers to hell simply as a place of “outer darkness” and “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Although He refers to heaven and the kingdom of heaven frequently, He never actually gives a description of it. The primary purpose of Jesus’ earthly ministry was to save the lost; the absence of detailed descriptions of heaven or hell in His teachings must surely give us pause for thought.

I believe that there are a few reasons for the lack of detail about these two eternal destinations in the Bible. First, the human mind while here on earth cannot fully comprehend them. Earth itself lies somewhere in between the two, and life on earth is all we know. Before the fall, Adam and Eve’s relationships with God and each other must have resembled heaven. After the fall, earth was not plunged into hell, because God was (and still is) actively involved in the dealings on earth. Humans have been separated from Him, but we still benefit from His presence and actions – the earth is still abundant with life and resources we need for survival, there is beauty all around us, we are still capable of love and we retain some capacity for kindness and compassion. All of these things are the result of God’s continued involvement in the earth and some remaining aspects of human nature that display parts of His image.

Because earth is not like either heaven or hell, and this is all we know, we simply cannot imagine how wonderful things could be if we were not separated from God by our sin (i.e. heaven) or how absolutely terrible complete separation from Him would be in hell. If Christians cannot imagine the glory of heaven or terror of hell, how are we supposed to get unbelievers to imagine these things?

Christians, at least, have already received a small taste of heaven and a glimpse of hell. We received a glimpse of hell the first time we understood the depths of wickedness and sin residing in our own hearts. Every one of us has some degree of appreciation for our own wickedness, which is necessary for repentance when we first come to Christ. Yet we still don’t fully comprehend the wickedness of our sin, and most of us have a lot to learn about just how awful it really is. Once we repented and came to the Lord who forgave us and washed us with His blood, we experienced our first taste of heaven. We found in our Lord a breadth, length, depth and height of love that we had never even known existed (Eph. 3:18). As with our understanding of sin, however, our comprehension of God’s love for us is still only the tip of the iceberg; we learn more about it as we walk with Him.

As a Christian, then, I am in a much better position to try and wrap my head around heaven or hell than the unbeliever. If I think of the blessedness of my relationship with the Lord, especially those moments when I am walking in obedience to Him, I could try to magnify that by thousands of times to create some conception of heaven. Heaven is the place where we will finally have no sin separating us from our Lord, where we can walk with Him in perfect unity and where we can fully glorify Him for all He has done for us.

For a Christian who has experienced some of the joy associated with walking with Jesus and glorifying Him, this idea of heaven is tantalising. But why should an unbeliever feel the same way? Regardless of how ‘good’ or ‘bad’ an unbeliever may appear to society, every single one of them is bound by the sin of selfishness. This bond, which has not yet been broken by the Lord, prevents them from thinking of heaven in anyway that is not inherently selfish. A self-centred view of heaven asks: What do I get out of it? How will I be rewarded? How much adulation will I receive from God and the other people there? How many of my friends will be there so we can have a good time together?

The description of the throne room in heaven provided in Revelation Chapter 4 and the first five verses of Chapter 22 are the most detailed glimpses of heaven in the Bible. Neither of them is particularly appealing to anyone who asks the questions I posed above. In the throne room, the believers spend their entire time worshipping God by throwing their crowns (rewards) at His feet. Revelation 22:1-5 is all about the Lamb of God; Christians are simply noted as His servants who reign with Him. So we get some reward that looks like a crown and some ruling power, but the whole point of both of those things is to use them for God’s glory. How is a person who is still bound by their selfishness and has not received God’s salvation supposed to be attracted to a place that is entirely God-centred, where the greatest privilege is worshipping Him?

Perhaps, then, trying to explain heaven to an unbeliever is unhelpful. The other option, the one most popular among the fire and brimstone preachers, is to try and scare them away from hell. Once again, the Bible is scant on details, so all we really know is that hell is a place of pain and torment. In this broken world we live in, both believers and unbelievers have plenty of examples of pain and torment, some of which they have experienced personally. So we could cobble together a picture of physical torture, the loss of loved ones and deep feelings regret and guilt, which we then extend for eternity. This picture of hell goes beyond the description we have in the Bible, so we are essentially creating it from our own imagination. If hell is indeed real and God is real, then why should Christians depend on their imaginations to bring people to the Lord? Would it not be better to stick to the truth?

Part of the problem with the truth of what hell is like is similar to the problem with describing the true heaven. Hell is associated with eternal death and darkness (e.g. Ps. 55:15; Prov. 5:5, 7:27; Matt. 10:28). These descriptions, I believe, are meant to define hell as the absence of our source of Life and Light – i.e. God. Although God can enter hell and He knows what is going on there (being omnipresent and omniscient), those dwelling there will not feel any of the effects of His presence. Just as heaven is wonderful is because God is there and we are fully united with Him, hell is terrible is because God’s presence is not there and we are fully separated from Him. Further, just as heaven is defined by the absence of sin among its residents, hell is the very pit of sinfulness.

Yet this accurate depiction of hell poses a problem for those trying to scare unbelievers into heaven. Some unbelievers despise God because they have formed a variety of skewed perceptions of Him. Most of these have to do with His judgement on sin, which they enjoy. Indeed, many of them are surrounded by other sinners, whom they consider to be their best friends! Additionally, these sinners may have had bad experiences with self-righteous false “Christians”; an eternity without such supposedly “sinless” people in their lives may therefore seem quite attractive (despite the fact that false Christians are also destined for hell if they do not repent). So experiencing an eternity without God and with their favourite sinners probably doesn’t sound like such a bad idea to someone who hates Him anyway and wants to keep their sin and sinful company.

For these reasons, I believe that making descriptions of heaven and hell the basis of our outreach is unwise. Obviously, our eternal destination is a key part of the gospel and it should not be left out entirely, but describing either heaven or hell accurately to one who has not learned to love the Lord or hate sin will probably not achieve much. How then do we include these concepts without creating imaginary pictures of them? How do we remain true to the Biblical concepts of heaven and hell, yet make them relevant to the unbeliever?

I think we need to start with an accurate understanding of who God is and how He influences our lives here on earth. How we relate to God for eternity is the ultimate difference between heaven and hell – either we are united with Him in love, or we are separated from Him by sin. We should therefore find out what the person we are talking to understands about who God is and what He is like. We can then clear up any misconceptions and try to replace them with a better understanding of Him.

Although the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all have the same attributes, the Son Jesus Christ is easiest for people to relate to because He came as a Man. Describing heaven or hell may be difficult from the few verses we have about them in Scripture, but describing Jesus is easy! The other benefit of this approach is that we have personal experiences with our Lord that we can relate to others with confidence. We know our Lord and can testify about His love and grace in our lives. In contrast, we have no personal experience with what hell or heaven is like, so any attempt at describing them will be a shot in the dark, at best.

The first priority, then, is to introduce the unbeliever to the real God (as opposed to their perceptions of Him) through the Person of Jesus Christ. We should nonetheless have some answers to their questions about heaven and hell. I believe the best approach to answering these questions is to show how our experiences on earth provide a little glimpse into each of these destinations.

Every human being inherently understands that there is good and evil on earth – we all have first-hand experiences of both. Which particular example of good and evil one uses will depend on the person and the situation. If someone denies the existence of good and evil, all you have to do is wait until they express a moral opinion about something. For example, they may tell you about someone who is really a “lovely person”, thus admitting goodness. Or perhaps they will rant about some deep injustice in the world (e.g. corruption), thus admitting evil. Either statement could lead into a conversation about what it is that makes that person ‘good’ or what it is about the injustice that is really ‘bad’.

Let us take a common example of goodness that most unbelievers have experienced in some way - love (e.g. for a parent, spouse or friend). The fact that God is love and that all those in heaven will love Him and each other perfectly, whereas love cannot exist without God and will therefore not exist between the people in hell may help them grasp one of the key differences between the two. In a similar way, the evil we deplore in the world today will be one of the key features of hell, so if you don’t like evil here on earth, you certainly aren’t going to enjoy hell!

Finally, in witnessing to others, we need to keep our eye on the ball. The ultimate goal of sharing the gospel is not to give someone a free pass to heaven; it is to introduce them to the God who makes heaven heavenly. While on earth, our relationship with the Lord will not be perfect (as it will be in heaven), but it is nonetheless the best relationship we could possibly have. We should not cheapen the gift of salvation by describing it only as a way to avoid hell and get into heaven. The real gift of salvation is God Himself.