The Lutheran Hour

"Hell: No One Has to Go There"

#90-31
Presented on The Lutheran Hour on April 2, 2023
Speaker: Rev. Dr. Michael Zeigler
Copyright 2025 Lutheran Hour Ministries

Text: Matthew 26:20-29

At first, I was shocked when I heard him. I didn’t know how to answer. He chuckled when he said it, like he meant it to be a joke, but there was also sadness in his voice. He said, “There’s always someone in the family who has to go to hell.” Mr. S was our B-team basketball coach when I was in the fourth and the fifth grade. He wasn’t much taller than we were, but he was strong as an ox, had quick hands, and a wicked hook shot. He helped coach the basketball team for our school. It was a Christian school attached to our church. A lot of the kids at the school attended the church on Sundays with their families. Sometimes Mr. S’s family would attend church, but Mr. S not so much. He had been raised in and around the Christian faith. He’d come for a Christmas service or an Easter service, but that was about it.

I can’t remember what prompted it, but one day I asked him about it. “Mr. S,” I said, “Why don’t you come to church with your family?” His answer startled me. He said it so matter-of-factly, like it was fated irrevocably. He said, “There’s always someone in the family who has to go to hell.” On one level, just the sound of the word was shocking to me. Hell. In my Christian day school ears, that was definitely a cuss word. And depending on which adults were around, you could even get into trouble for saying the B-team version. You could get into trouble for saying heck. If you were out at recess and Mrs. D heard you say, “What the heck?” That would be as bad as a cuss word.

Now, you could quibble on a technicality and say that it’s not really a cuss word, but then you get a lecture on how heck was just a knockoff of the original, the Shasta cola of cuss words. When someone says, “What the heck,” we all know that it’s just a stand in for the real thing, like Dr. Thunder is for Dr. Pepper. And it’s a slippery slope because one day you’ll be saying, “What the heck,” and the next day you’ll be spelling it out, H-E double hockey sticks, and then before you know it, you’re cussing like a sailor.

But then some wiseacre would say, “Mrs. D, why is hell a bad word? It’s in the Bible, isn’t it?” And she’d say, “It’s not necessarily a bad word, it’s a serious word, so you shouldn’t use it like it’s a joke.” And I guess that’s what got my attention when Mr. S said it, when I asked him about why he didn’t go to church, and he said that there’s always someone who has to go to hell. I could tell that he wanted it to be a joke, but not even he found it all that funny. And I knew what he said wasn’t quite right.

My Sunday school teachers and Christian day school teachers had drilled John 3:16 home for us. “God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him, whoever trusts in Him, would not perish but would have eternal life.” God loves the world and God wants to give eternal life to everyone, and Jesus is the guarantee, the promise. But Mr. S also had a point because even Jesus had his Judas in the family. Maybe there is always someone.

The presence of Judas in the life story of Jesus raises the possibility that we can lose this eternal life that God guarantees. But if we can lose it, how is it a guarantee? If it’s a guarantee from God, from the all-powerful, loving God, then you shouldn’t be able to lose it. But if you can lose it, then it’s unsure, it’s uncertain. It’s not guaranteed. Of course, I didn’t know enough to be able to articulate these thoughts when I was ten years old, but I knew enough to know that Mr. S had raised a serious problem.

Now I realize this problem may not feel as personal for you. Maybe you didn’t go to a Christian school. Maybe you weren’t raised around the Christian faith. Maybe you don’t take the threat of hell seriously. And I’ll tell you upfront, my aim in talking to you today is not to address skepticism about the reality of hell. That would be a worthy goal for a sermon, but it’s not the goal for this one. The goal here is simply to clarify some responses to the threat of hell because the threat of hell is out there. There’s no denying the fact of it. It’s in our vocabulary, in our culture, in our stories and songs and literature. Some may not see it as a serious threat, but whether you dismiss it as a joke or take it seriously, you’re still responding to it. And it’s these responses that I’d like to clarify.

And even if you’ve never been in a situation like my conversation with Mr. S, you still might find this helpful, because at some point you have or you will find yourself talking with someone, someone like Dante, the great medieval poet of the Inferno. “Midway through our life’s journey in dark woods, the right road lost.” Someday, you yourself will be troubled by the bad things you’ve done, haunted by the good you failed to do, faced with the possibility of losing life with God forever, left only with your sin and its consequences.

The threat of hell is before us, and there are at least two ways to respond to it. We can approach it either as a problem to be solved or as a mystery to be endured. I’d like to advocate for the second approach, but before we go there, let’s see what it would be like to treat it as a problem to be solved.

Here’s one way to solve the problem of hell. Simply reimagine a world without the threat. We could say with the singer, John Lennon, “Imagine there is no heaven. It’s easy if you try. No hell below us. Above us only sky.” Now, the Bible never says that hell is literally below us underground. That was Dante. Nonetheless, John Lennon does give us a straightforward way to solve the problem. Just imagine it doesn’t exist. But that may be easier said than done because human beings have created more than enough premonitions of hell on earth that it’s not easy simply to imagine away the possibility of some final ultimate hell.

Now, there are other ways to solve the problem of hell, ways that even Christians try to use. They try to solve the problem by stressing the love of God. Because of the guarantee of God’s love, they’ll say that we have a life with God that we cannot lose. The solution could go like this. God loves us without conditions. It’s by grace you’ve been saved through faith. And this is not of yourself. It’s God’s gift so that no one can boast. All that so far is solid biblical truth. God does guarantee us eternal life in Jesus. But then if we take the next step and say, “That means I cannot lose this life that God gives. Therefore, hell is no longer a threat for me. Problem solved.” But look at what happens with that solution. We’ve claimed God’s guarantee but have dispensed with our responsibility. We’re saying that our actions and words and thoughts don’t matter. Ultimately, even our faith doesn’t matter because this life with God is impossible to lose, and if nothing I do matters, then what the heck? I can do whatever I want, right?

Jesus commands me to give to the poor, but I want to spend my money on myself. Why the heck would I give it to people who don’t deserve it? Jesus commands me to forgive, but how the heck could I forgive her after what she did to me? Jesus commands me not to strike out in anger with words or actions, but how in the heck am I supposed to control myself when people can be so infuriating? And if I already have a guarantee, if this life with God is something that I cannot lose, then why the heck does this even matter?

I hope you can see where this problem-solving business is getting us. It puts us in direct contradiction not only to the commands of God but also to the facts of what actually happened in the life of Jesus. Again, let’s take Judas as our example. Judas was a part of Jesus’ inner circle of his twelve disciples. Judas was there when Jesus told him the truth about the mystery of life in God’s kingdom. Judas was there in the boat when Jesus walked on the water and all the disciples worshiped Jesus as the Son of God. Judas was there when Jesus promised them eternal life in His coming kingdom. And Judas was there at the Last Supper in the upper room when Jesus gave them the bread and the wine and He said, “This is My body. This is My blood of the covenant poured out for many, for all, for the forgiveness of sins.” And all these promises from Jesus were guarantees from God, also for Judas. And on God’s side of things, they were completely true and reliable and certain. Nonetheless, Judas possessed a terrifying power to destroy himself. And Jesus, still loving him, yet foreseeing that Judas would destroy himself, said it would’ve been better for Judas if he had not been born. See Matthew 26:24.

Read or listen to the life story of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament Gospels. All of them include this awful mystery of Judas. The Gospel writer Matthew tells it most tragically. Matthew alone gives us the details of how after he betrayed Jesus, Judas had a change of heart. Matthew said that when Judas, His betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, Judas changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the religious leaders. He said, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.” They said, “What is that to us? See to it yourself.” And throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he left and went and hanged himself.

The tragedy of Judas is a warning to all of us, but especially to those who follow Jesus. We still have this terrifying power to destroy ourselves. Sin still deceives us. And if we don’t keep confessing it and turning away from it, it will put us on a path toward losing our faith in Jesus, and that road ends in hell. Christians cannot solve this problem by removing God’s warning. We can lose this life. We can harden our hearts. We can shipwreck our faith. But if this is true, how can God’s promise be a guarantee if we can lose it? Isn’t that a contradiction? Humanly speaking, yes, it seems so. And once more, we have two ways that we can approach it. We can try to solve it with the powers of our reasoning, or we can endure it as a mystery in the life story of Jesus.

But just to see where it gets us, again, let’s try solving the problem, this time in the other direction. Let’s cut the knot by saying that God’s promise isn’t really a guarantee. It’s more like a contract, and our relationship with God is like a set of contractual obligations. Jesus did His part, but He can’t do everything for you. You’ve got to do your part. God got it started. You have to keep it going. That’s the deal. Again, this does solve the problem on the level of human reasoning, but look at where it gets us. Now we’ve got no guarantees, nothing we can put our faith in except for our own efforts. And we’ve made Jesus into God’s lawyer who came to deliver the terms of a contract, and now all you have is a glorified to-do list that will always keep you wondering, “Have I done enough? Am I good enough?” Trying to solve the problem in this direction puts too much confidence in our ability to do anything to keep our life in God secure.

One thing the life story of Jesus makes clear is that all the disciples fell away. It wasn’t just Judas. And Jesus saw it coming. After He shared that Last Supper with them, He told them, “You will all fall away because of Me this night.” Peter, a leader among them, most confident in his ability to keep himself secure, said to Jesus, “Even though they all fall away because of You, I will never fall away.” Jesus told him, “Truly, I tell you, this night before the rooster crows, you will deny Me three times.” And it happened, just as Jesus said it would.

At this point in the story, what’s the difference between Judas and Peter? Was it that Peter only sinned with his words and Judas sinned with his actions? Was it that Peter’s remorse was heartfelt and Judas’ wasn’t? What was the difference? A teacher of mine said it this way. “Having pondered a number of responses and considered the text, my answer to that question is single and simple. Nothing. Other than the obvious fact that Judas kills himself and Peter does not, the spiritual conditions of the two men differ in no way. Both have fallen from faith in Jesus. Both are in despair.”

The account is clear. Everyone fails. In the end, only Jesus’ faithfulness is guaranteed. That’s why God raised Him from the dead. Judas and Peter, you and I, we’re all the same. None of us have anything to offer to Jesus, not even the sincerity of our repentance. And yet Jesus is still here for all of us. Why do some despair in their sin while others receive the promise of forgiveness and faith? We don’t know. It’s not a problem that we can solve. The threat of hell, eternal separation from God, is real. If we say, “What the heck,” to our sins, they will destroy us. But Jesus died and rose because He still loves us. He doesn’t give us a contract that we must hold to, but a guarantee that He will hold on to us. And in His hands we endure this mystery.

Mr. S, my fifth-grade B team basketball coach, died 20 years ago. I lost touch with him when we moved away. But my memories of him continue to positively influence me to this day. We were only the B team, but he loved us. He treated us like family. We weren’t just numbers to him. We were people. He cared about us. I don’t know what his relationship with God was when he died, but I knew then and I know now that Mr. S, good as he was, could never save himself. He could never save himself. So in love, Jesus went to the cross for his sins, same as mine, same as yours.

Mr. S was bought with that blood ransom price, just like me and you and everyone else. And so when he said that someone in the family needs to go to hell, as though it were his fate to be damned forever, a thousand Sunday school lessons and sermons, chapel messages and memory verses in all their simple unfathomable mystery flooded my mind and opened my mouth and said, “No, that’s not true. You don’t have to go to hell. God wants to save you.” Even at ten years old, I knew that for now, all we can do is suffer this mystery. Hell is no joke, but Jesus is God’s living guarantee that no one has to go there.

Please pray with me. Dear Father, You promise that when Jesus returns to raise the dead and restore all things, You will give us life that cannot be lost. Through this danger in which we now walk, keep us close to You, even to that day. Through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, One God now and forever. Amen.

Reflections for Abril 02, 2023
Title: Hell: No One Has to Go There

Mark Eischer: And we’re back with our Speaker, Dr. Mike Zeigler.

Mike Zeigler: Hello.

Mark Eischer: Today is traditionally called Palm Sunday. It’s a time when Christians remember Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem with the crowds shouting, hosanna, and calling Jesus their Messiah King. How did this moment then take such a drastic turn?

Mike Zeigler: That is an excellent question. And I’ll tell you why I’m so glad you asked the question, because when I was first serving as a pastor, first getting started, I noticed that along with Christmas Eve, Easter and Palm Sunday were two of the best-attended services of the year. And of course, Palm Sunday, like you said, it’s a celebration. We’re giving the kids real palm branches to wave. Do they do that at your church?

Mark Eischer: Yeah. And the Sunday school kids go up the aisle and waving the palm branches.

Mike Zeigler: Yeah, yeah. It’s a great time. It’s like this parade and all the songs, the hymns, they sound like marches, and it’s victory celebration. And I noticed that many people would come to a Palm Sunday service and then they would not come back to church for the midweek services of Holy Week. They would come again for Easter, which is of course is another great celebration. And they would miss all this intervening drama of what happened because as you said, Palm Sunday, it’s just a moment. Things take a drastic turn.

Mark Eischer: And those praises of Jesus quickly turned to demands that He be crucified.

Mike Zeigler: Right. And so to help people follow the story and understand the events—as a pastor I started following another option for this Sunday, which is to observe it as Sunday of the Passion. Which just means you include some additional readings from one of the Gospels to go through at least some of the events of how the religious leaders schemed and the crowds were turned, how Jesus was betrayed and mocked and ultimately crucified, which was nonetheless God’s profound plan to save us. So to help people understand these events, I was always encouraging my congregation to hear the whole story.

Mark Eischer: And with that in mind, it reminds me of the Holy Week specials that we’re offering this year, which will include two additional programs that listeners can find on their local stations. Or if not, they’ll also be available online through our Lutheran Hour app and across all the major podcast platforms.

Mike Zeigler: Thank you for mentioning that. Yes, those two additional programs are designed to help listeners grasp not only that Jesus died and rose to save us, but how—how it happened—because how it happened matters for how these events shape our lives as followers of a crucified and risen Messiah.

Mark Eischer: So in these special programs, we’ll be hearing the full account of Jesus’ death and resurrection as it’s recorded in the first book of the New Testament, the Gospel according to St. Matthew. We will be sharing it in two parts: part one, covering the events of Holy Thursday in Matthew 26, and then part two, Good Friday, in Matthew 27.

Mike Zeigler: And we pray that you will devote some extra time with us this season. Let yourself be immersed in Matthew’s account of Jesus’ passion. And we hope that it will be an immersive listening experience, one that will help you picture the events in your mind as they unfold and hold them in your heart and give meaning and direction to your life.

Music Selections for this program:

“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.

“Come to Calvary’s Holy Mountain” arr. Henry Gerike. Used by permission.

“Hosanna, Loud Hosanna” performed by the Children’s Choirs of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Ft. Wayne, Indiana. From O Lord, Open My Lips (© 1995 St. Paul’s Lutheran Church)

“A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth” From The Concordia Organist (© 2009 Concordia Publishing House) Used by permission.