Fire and Rain

Hitler.  Dahmer.  Stalin.  Bin Laden. 

When we think of hell and the people that deserve it, names like these usually come to mind.  We're comfortable when serial killers, dictators, and rapists go to hell, but what about the average person?  What about mediocre sinners?  What about me?  Or you?  Most of us agree that severe sinners deserve hell, but what about slight sinners?

When I was 23, I was in a car accident.  Traffic was heavy, I was following just a tad too closely, and BLAM!  I ran right into the back of the car in front of me.  No one was injured, but the cars (particularly mine) didn't look too great.  One second I was looking out my front windshield, and the next second I was staring at the hood of my car, which had crumpled so badly that part of it was now vertical.  The smell of oil and transmission fluid mingled with the smell of the coffee that had splattered all over the front seat.  In one of the more surreal moments of my life, the first thing I did was turn off my cassette player. 

The whole thing was my fault, of course.

Now, up until this moment, my driving record had been perfect.  I had never gotten a speeding ticket, never run a red light, never even failed to use a turn indicator.  The police officer who arrived on the scene even commented on that fact . . . as he handed me my ticket.  Oh, and just for the record, following too closely carries a hefty fine.

Did I deserve the ticket?  After all, not only was it merely one single offense, it was my only offense.  If anyone deserved a break, it had to be me, right?  The officer didn't think so, because he still handed me my ticket.  The point, of course, is that while it may have only been one offense, it was still an offense.  It would have been more pleasant for the officer to overlook the crime, but the important question is this:  would it have been just? 

The job of any law enforcement officer is to enforce the law.  Now, the law is clear:  following too closely means receiving an expensive ticket.  If he had let me off the hook, then he would no longer be doing his job.  In fact, if he let me go - though generous - what would that say about his integrity?  What if he gave a ticket to the next person who was following too closely, but he didn't give me one?  At best, we would call him inconsistent.  What I am driving at is that not only was it just to hand me a ticket, it would have been unjust not to do so.  Remember, I broke the law, and there are penalties for breaking the law.

Something we must always remember is this:  justice demands payment. 

Now, for God (who is the very definition of justice) to look the other way when we sin means that He would cease to be just.  He would, in fact, cease to be God.  When He says that sin brings hell, for Him to then ignore His own Law, though more pleasant, would be inconsistent and unjust.

Of course, we could ask ourselves, what if the system itself were unjust?  What if God, just by declaring that one single sin deserves hell, is inherently unjust?  This is, on the surface, a wonderful idea.  After all, if there are no laws to break, then there need be no penalty for breaking them.  The "Christian" answer at this point is usually something to the effect of, "God is God, so He makes the rules." 

Frankly, that's a cop-out.

While I do believe that God is God, and I do believe that He can truly do whatever He wants, it doesn't explain why He chose to define selfishness as sin.  What that line of argument does is actually take God and put Him into a convenient box labeled "Unknowable."  That's just silly, because Jesus made it clear that he came so that we might know the Father the way that his disciples knew him.

So why does God care so much about sin?  Let's turn to the driving example again.  Why does following too closely carry such a heavy fine?  After all, shouldn't I be able to drive however I want with my car?  Not at all.  Following too closely is wrong because my actions don't just affect me; my actions affect others, as well.  The woman whose car I hit was (obviously) inconvenienced, but she wasn't the only one.  It turns out she was a nurse in a doctor's office and was on her way back to work from her lunch break.  Because the accident detained her, her co-workers had to pick up her slack until she could get a ride in.  My actions inconvenienced an entire office staff, as well as the patients who had to wait for the unexpectedly short-staffed doctor's office to catch up.  On top of that, I inconvenienced her friend who had to stop what she was doing, drive out to our location, take the woman to work, and then drive back home.  I also inconvenienced my mother, who had to pick me up, because she was on her way to meet a friend for lunch (so, technically, I ruined her friend's plans, too).

How many people did my actions affect?  Let's see:  the woman, an unknown number of co-workers, an unknown number of patients, the woman's friend, my mom, my mom's friend, and, of course, myself.

What about those people on the little two-lane road who had to wait for the tow truck to arrive, hook up my car, and take it away?  They were missing lunch breaks, meetings, appointments, who knows?  Maybe an on-call surgeon was on his way to the hospital to perform an emergency surgery.  Maybe the patient died.  Now I'm responsible for the death of someone, and the grief of that person's family.  Maybe someone was late for work and lost his or her job over it.  I'm responsible.  This is all mere speculation, of course, but the point is that, while I most certainly did affect many people, I may have affected many, many more.  And to top all of that off, I effectively told the lawmakers of our society that their rules don't apply to me.

Sin is the same.  Our sins carry consequences that affect those around us, often in ways of which we are unaware.  Every time you put yourself first, someone gets hurt.  We can rationalize it away and convince ourselves that our actions only affect us, but it's simply not true.  So the scary fact is that God wants us to stop hurting people with our selfishness, or face the consequences. 

But it's more than that.  God also wants us to stop worshiping lesser things and only worship Him, because He is the Creator of those lesser things.  And God says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength . . . Love your neighbor as yourself"  (Mark 12:30-32).  Do you get the idea?  In order to dwell with God - in order to be sinless - you must never put yourself before anyone, and you must never put anything before God.  Paul, in 1 Corinthians 6, writes:  "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived:  Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the Kingdom of God" (9-10).  David writes in Psalm 5:  "Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?  Who may live on your holy hill?  He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart and has no slander on his tongue, who does his neighbor no wrong and casts no slur on his fellow man" (5:1-3). 

With that in mind, I ask again:  is it unjust to punish sin with hell?  It would be unjust not to.