Our Penalty Has Been Canceled

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.’” - Matthew 25:41

Yesterday, we began a conversation about hell and the reality of its existence. Jesus talked so much about hell that His emphasis on it should challenge us to share the gospel with others. But there are two more truths about hell that I want us to discuss, so let’s break those down now.

The second truth we need to understand about hell is that the will of God calls for the necessity of hell. God hates hell, and He hates the fact that people will go there. But God’s love is so merciful and so real that He allows people to choose hell if that is what they want. This is a crucial point for all of us to understand. It is the will of God that we have free will – that we have the ability to choose. Hell is not going to be populated with people that God rejected; it is going to be populated with the people who rejected God.

The third truth we need to grasp about hell is that the work of God cancels the penalty of hell. This is the part of this topic that I get excited to talk about because the primary message the Bible gives about hell is not negative; it is positive. God didn’t even prepare hell for the human race. It was never God’s desire for anyone to go to hell. Jesus said in Matthew 25:41, “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels’” (Matthew 25:41).

The place called “hell” was designed for the devil and his demonic followers – not for human beings. That is why God sent Jesus to die on the cross so we would not have to go to hell. God sent Jesus to take care of our sin problem, to give us a reason to believe, and to give us a desire to want to be with God forever.

The truth of the matter is God doesn’t send people to hell. He sent Jesus so we wouldn’t have to go there. God doesn’t want anybody to go to hell. God has given us everything from a cross, to His Word, to the life of His own Son, so that we don’t have to go to hell. Because of the grace of this loving God, I can say to you when it comes to hell, “Don’t go there! You don’t have to.”

Dear Lord, thank you for dying for me and taking the penalty for my sins so that I don’t have to go to hell. I pray that you would give me the courage to share the gospel with others so that they don’t go to hell either, but instead, we all get to spend eternity in heaven with you. In Jesus’ name, amen.