Perhaps you or someone you know has said, “I cannot believe in a God who allows people to go to Hell.” But rarely if ever will you hear someone say, “I cannot believe in a God who would send His only Son to endure the agony of crucifixion in order to save sinners.”
I believe those are the two toughest truths in the Bible, with the toughest truth being the crucifixion of Christ. The Messiah suffered six hours of agony on the cross after already having the flesh torn from His body when He was flogged.
In The Case for Christ, Lee Strobel provides in graphic detail this description of flogging from Dr. Alexander Metherell: “The soldier would use a whip of braided leather thongs with metal balls woven into them. When the whip would strike the flesh, these balls would cause deep bruises or contusions, which would break open with further blows. And the whip had pieces of broken bone as well which would cut the flesh severely.”
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Metherell continued, “The back would be so shredded that part of the spine was sometimes exposed by the deep, deep cuts. The whipping would have gone all the way from the shoulders down to the back, the buttocks, and the back of the legs. It was just terrible. A third century historian by the name of Eusebius described a flogging by saying, ‘The sufferer’s veins were laid bare and the very muscles, sinews and bowels of the victim were open to exposure.'”
Jesus foretold His suffering with these words: “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him, insult Him, spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. On the third day He will rise again” (Luke 18:31-33).
When it was time for Christ to be crucified, nails were driven into His wrists and feet. The weight of His body was on the nails through the wrists. This caused compression on the lungs, which prevented Jesus from inhaling. In order to take a breath, Jesus had to push upward putting all the weight on His feet, causing unbearable pain. Try to imagine doing that for six seconds, let alone six hours.
The toughest truth in the Bible is that the Son of God left the perfection of Heaven and bore such relentless and excruciating pain in order to redeem us from sin, death, the devil and eternal punishment in Hell.
This brings us to the second toughest truth in the Bible. Jesus described “the end of the age” this way: “The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will weed out of His kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 13:40-42).
Those words came straight from the mouth of the One who would go on to suffer flogging and crucifixion for our salvation. It has been said that Jesus spoke more often about Hell than about Heaven. The Lord lovingly warned people that there are only two destinations in eternity.
Jesus said, “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it” (Matthew 7:13-14).
So, why did God create Hell in the first place? Jesus described this horrible place of suffering as “the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels” (Matthew 25:41). The reason so many people end up in Hell is because they reject the Savior and refuse to come to Christ to have their sins forgiven. Breaking God’s Law is what ultimately sends people to Hell.
Jesus described Hell as a place where “their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. Everyone will be salted with fire” (Mark 9:48-49). The Lord announced that unforgiven sinners “will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).
Which of these two truths in the Bible do you find tougher to believe? The flogging and crucifixion of the sinless Son of God, or the fact that many people, such as the rich man in Luke 16, have already entered Hell to begin their sentence of eternal punishment? Luke 16:19-31 is not a parable because Jesus used the actual names of the participants in this true story.
The Lord’s sacrificial death is the agonizing price Jesus paid in full so that we who believe in Christ would be redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. (see 1 Peter 1:19) The prison of Hell, on the other hand, is reserved for lawbreakers who refused to “repent and believe the good news” (Mark 1:15) during their life on Earth.
You and I are lawbreakers. The only way we can be forgiven of the many times we have broken God’s Law is to come to the cross in repentance and faith.
Dan Delzell is the pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Papillion, Nebraska.
