In this section of Scripture the Roman Procurator, Pontius Pilate, is trying to determine how to dispose of the “problem” of Jesus. He is thinking about his job of keeping peace in the province of Palestine, of keeping the local authorities of the Sanhedrin cooperative, of keeping in good standing with his boss, Tiberias Caesar, and with a fear that there might be something different about Jesus that could result in getting on the bad side of some god. Guilt, innocence, justice and love are elements that don’t come up in his calculations. The highest good in Pilate’s mind is what is good for Pilate.
Now let’s contrast that with what we know about the God of the Bible, embodied in the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. In John chapter 3:13 – 21, Jesus tells Nicodemus:
No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates and does not come to the light, lest his works be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out by God.
There’s a lot to unpack there but let me add some more. In Ecclesiastes 3:11, The Preacher tells us, “He has made everything beautiful in its time, also, he has put eternity into man’s heart.” Then the Apostle Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:9, “The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” Then the Apostle John adds, in 1 John 4:16, “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.” If people go to hell, is it because God is not loving?
Let’s go back to the beginning. In Genesis 1:31, we are at the end of the sixth day, “And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” On the seventh day, God “formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, . . . The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it (literally to ‘worship and obey’ in the original Hebrew). And the Lord God commanded the man saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die.” Wait! What just happened? Answer: Free Will. Of all that God created, mankind alone may choose to obey his creator or not. God gave Adam some tasks to accomplish like naming (knowing) all the different creatures and walking with God in the cool of the evening to talk about everything – kind of the ultimate ‘home school’. But in chapter 3 mankind (Adam and Eve) chose to “become like God” and walk away from the “worship and obey” core of human identity.
I wish I had time to talk about all that God is – Holy (meaning utterly without sin), Light, Peace, Joy, Patient, Kind, but above all, pure Love. The bottom line is that, at some point, every human being who has ever existed – every one of us – has consciously chosen to disobey that “eternity” in our heart and do what we knew to be wrong – sin. When God said, “you shall surely die.”, he didn’t mean ‘struck by lightning”, instantaneous death. He meant an eternal dying resulting from our choice to be our own god. That’s what Hell is. An eternal dying, apart from God’s presence and all the goodness and beauty that flows from him which is Heaven. Sin cannot exist in the presence of God – not because it threatens God – but because holiness threatens sin like an open flame threatens every insect that is drawn to its light.
Every religion in the world recognizes that sin and disobedience is serious – so serious that some living being must die in order to even temporarily stay the consequence of sin. The only perfect sacrifice sufficient to cover all the sin mankind brought into God’s perfect creation was the blood shed by God Himself in the person of his son, Jesus. Faith in that shed blood is the only flame-proof suit that will allow sinful men to stand in the Holy presence of God forever in the sin-free new creation.
In Deuteronomy 30:19, Moses’ final address to the people of Israel, he tells them, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life . . .” In his book, The Great Divorce, author C. S. Lewis has his character say, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, ‘Thy will be done’, and those to whom God says, in the end, ‘Thy will be done’.”
Choose life.